THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 


By  the  same  author  and  others 

The  Old  Puritanism 
And  The  New  Age 

Net  50  cents 

THE  PILGRIM  PRESS 
BOSTON,  NEW  YORK,  CHICAGO 


The  Spirit  Christlike 


BY 

CHARLES  S.  MACFARLAND 

Minister  of  the  Maplewood  Congregational  Church, 
Maiden,  Massachusetts. 


BOSTON 

T£be  pilgrim  press 

NEW  YORK  CHICAGO 


London : 

JAflES  CLARKE  &  CO., 

13  &  14,  Fleet  Street. 


COPYRIGHT,  1904, 

BY 
CHARLES  S.  MACFARLAND 


My  Mother 


2049714    ' 


Preface 

THE  intention  is  not,  primarily,  to  influ- 
ence the  mind  and  command  the  assent  of 
the  reason.  These  words  are  less  the  rea- 
soned conclusions  of  the  mind  than  the 
utterances  of  the  heart,  though  they  are 
both.  They  are  meant  to  reach  the  heart 
and  are  an  appeal  to  the  affections.  In  so 
far  as  they  may  seek  to  answer  the  deep 
questions  of  life,  they  aim  to  give  the  simple 
answer  of  religion.  There  is  no  other  final 
answer  to  life's  deepest  questions.  They 
were  spoken  and  written  to  help  in  leading 
men  to  live  in  spirits  prayerful  which  will  be- 
come lives  Christlike. 

0.  S.  M. 


Contents 

THE  LIFE  CONTEMPLATIVE     -  n 

THE  LIGHT  WITHIN     -  -         -       25 

THE  GROWTH  IN  GRACE        -  -       39 

GOD  WITH  Us     -  -                  ~53 

GOD  WITHIN  Us  -         -       69 

THE  SPIRIT  PRAYERFUL  -       85 

THE  LIFE  CHRISTLIKE  -  -       99 

SURRENDER  AND  SACRIFICE      -  -113 

THE  MINISTRY  OF  SUFFERING  -     125 

THE  LIFE  IMMORTAL    -  -     1 39 

THE  UNIVERSAL  INCARNATION  -         -         -     155 


The  Life  Contemplative 


Now  it  came  to  pass,  as  they  went,  that  he  entered 
into  a  certain  village :  and  a  certain  woman  named 
Martha  received  him  into  her  house. 

And  she  had  a  sister  called  Mary,  which  also  sat 
at  Jesus'  feet,  and  heard  his  word. 

But  Martha  was  cumbered  about  much  serving, 
and  came  to  him,  and  said,  Lord,  dost  thou  not  care 
that  my  sister  hath  left  me  to  serve  alone  ?  bid  her 
therefore  that  she  help  me. 

And  Jesus  answered  and  said  unto  her,  Martha, 
Martha,  thou  art  careful  and  troubled  about  many 
things : 

But  one  thing  is  needful:  and  Mary  hath  chosen 
that  good  part,  which  shall  not  be  taken  away  from 
her. — LUKE  10:  38-42. 


The  Life  Contemplative 


THE  stress  of  daily  life,  the  meeting  of 
its  many  needs,  obedience  to  its  calls,  and 
the  performance  of  its  duties,  are  so  multi- 
tudinous and  great  that  living  takes  the  sole 
form  of  action,  and  is  in  danger  of  losing  in 
its  depth  and  grace  all  that  it  gains  in  its 
intensity  and  movement. 

Without  the  guidance  of  the  mind  in 
judgment,  even  our  philanthropies  and  other 
deeds  of  goodness  are  meaningless  ;  without 
consideration  of  the  inner  motive  of  the 
heart,  the  performance  of  our  outward  duty 
may  become  a  menace  to  the  true  growth  of 
life.  The  inner  self  is  lost  in  the  environ- 
ment of  outer  things  and  without  the  grow- 
ing of  the  soul  the  springs  of  life  must 
ultimately  fail.  "Without  the  life  contem- 
plative the  will  is  weakened,  action  becomes 
mere  habit,  the  soul  loses  its  identity,  and 
we  become  performers  on  a  stage,  only  to 
repeat  the  lines  we  learn  by  rote. 
'3 


14     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

The  final  value  of  the  action  of  the  outer 
man  inheres  not  in  the  deed  itself,  but  in 
the  deeper  motive  of  the  heart,  and  the  true 
measure  of  a  life  is  not  the  number  of  its 
deeds,  nor  their  intensity,  even  in  what  out- 
wardly appears  the  moral  realm  of  living. 
Actions  are  not  the  only  things  that  bless 
and  sanctify  our  human  life. 

Some  lives  among  us  do  no  outward  deeds 
of  strength,  and  seem,  to  superficial  souls, 
to  be  of  little  or  no  worth.  But  without 
the  mystics  of  the  world,  the  actors  would 
have  had  no  motive.  They  are  not  strong 
in  execution,  yet  they  have  breathed  forth 
and  made  an  atmosphere  which  gives  to 
life  its  cast  and  meaning  and  supplies  its 
impulse.  Thus  have  the  musing  of  the 
poet,  the  profound  thought  of  the  philoso- 
pher, and  prayer  of  saint,  wrought  for  our 
liberty,  equality  and  charity  no  less  than 
flaming  sword  of  honor,  or  the  outward 
deed  of  love. 

Life  must  be  more  than  the  immediate 
act  of  impulse.  It  must  have  its  meaning 
and  interpretation.  And  if  the  greater  be 
the  cause  of  things,  and  the  lesser  the  effect ; 


THE  LIFE  CONTEMPLATIVE     15 

if  the  creator  is  above  the  creature,  because 
cause  and  creator  are  essential  to  the  acts 
and  the  creations,  then  it  is  true  that  inspi- 
ration is  a  greater  thing  than  action,  and  the 
dreamer  who  first  dreamed  the  goodness  to 
be  done  is  of  the  higher  order  of  our 
being. 

With  most  of  us  plain  common  people,  life 
is  not  thus  determined  on  the  one  side  or  the 
other  by  the  impelling  force  of  a  one-sided 
genius.  But  life  for  us  is  the  epitome  of  all 
great  lives,  in  miniature.  In  smaller  meas- 
ure, each  human  life  is  called  to  meet  both 
needs.  Not  many  of  us  are  set  aside  for 
lives  either  of  incessant  action  or  of  unruf- 
fled meditation. 

We  must  not  only  do  our  duty,  but  we 
must  learn  what  our  duty  is.  We  must  not 
only  see  the  issue  of  our  action  as  it  affects 
ourselves,  and  now,  but  as  it  influences  other 
men  and  as  it  bears  on  the  eternal  future.  We 
must  not  only  do,  guided  by  the  formal  defi- 
nition of  our  duty,  which  contents  a  thought- 
less world  whose  vision  is  so  dimmed,  but 
we  must  so  do  as  to  satisfy  the  spiritual 
sense  within. 


16     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

Did  the  Son  of  God  come  down  to  earth 
to  show  men  what  to  do?  Narrowly,  he 
never  showed  them.  Into  the  small  details 
of  daily  deed  he  never  went.  No  rules  of 
conduct  did  he  ever  once  prescribe. 

What  Jesus  tried  to  do  was  this :  He 
taught  men  how  to  pray,  and  how  to  think, 
and  what  the  larger  laws  of  the  life  spirit- 
ual were.  They  were  to  see  God  through 
the  windows  of  pure-heartedness.  To  say 
that  Jesus  is  example  for  mere  imitation  is 
to  degrade  the  gospel.  He  came  to  give  to 
men  a  type  of  mind,  a  cast  of  heart,  a  bent 
of  will.  He  did  not  tell  men  how  they  were 
to  do,  but  what  they  were  to  be.  Walking 
among  men  he  gave  a  revelation  of  the  two- 
fold aspect  of  a  perfect  human  life.  He 
lived  a  busy  and  hardworking  life,  as  we 
should  do.  He  healed  the  sick,  he  helped 
the  poor,  he  fed  the  hungry  and  he  taught 
his  followers.  But  even  he  could  not  act 
out  of  hand  and  do  his  daily  duty  without 
contemplation  of  what  his  duty  was.  So 
his  life  had  another  side.  He  spent  the 
hours  of  midnight  on  the  mountainside,  he 
went  apart  to  think  and  pray.  He,  the  Son 


THE  LIFE  CONTEMPLATIVE     17 

of  God,  with  his  transcendent  goodness,  did 
not  feel  equal  to  life's  busy  cares  and  deeds, 
but  needed  the  strength,  the  guidance  and 
the  inspiration  of  the  silent  hour.  His  life 
passed  forth  from,  meditation  to  action, 
from  action  back  to  meditation. 

Too  many  men  and  women  of  to-day  have 
lost  thjg  sense  of  need,  and  in  proportion  as 
life's  obligations  have  increased,  the  need  of 
preparation  is  ignored.  We  need  not  only 
to  act,  but  need  to  think ;  not  only  to  do 
but  to  pray.  There  are  human  duties  to  be 
met  and  done.  But  there  are  likewise  hu- 
man graces  to  be  gained  and  cultured.  To 
cultivate  the  graces  we  need  the  life  contem- 
plative. If  Jesus  needed  them,  do  we  not 
need  the  hours  on  the  mountainside  and  in 
the  garden  ? 

It  is  not  in  the  warping  stress  of  life,  but 
in  the  quiet  hour,  that  the  symmetry  of  life 
is  gained.  For  here  it  is,  freed  from  the 
bias  of  a  definite  occasion,  that  the  still  small 
voice  of  mercy  can  be  heard  in  tender  plead- 
ing against  the  thunder  tones  of  justice.  It 
is  here  forgiveness  gains  the  victory  over 
sense  of  outrage  and  of  wrong ;  that  patience 


i8     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

pleads  with  righteousness,  that  charity  and 
love  come  in  to  make  life  beautiful  as  well 
as  strong. 

It  is  the  mind  contemplative  that  puts 
ourselves  before  the  bar  of  our  own  con- 
sciences. And  whereas,  for  our  brother, 
mercy  tempered  justice,  and  kindness  cov- 
ered up  a  multitude  of  sins,  now  the  scene 
reverses,  and  the  careless,  heedless  deeds  of 
hurried  day  assume  the  form  of  sins,  and 
we  become  our  own  divinely  sent  confes- 
sors. 

It  is  here  we  analyze  the  inner  motives  of 
our  hearts  and  find,  in  the  clear  light  of 
contemplation,  that  what  we  made  to  seem 
so  good,  and  which  was  good  to  the  eyes  of 
other  men,  was  really,  in  the  eyes  of  God, 
and  now  in  our  eyes,  selfish,  low  and  mean. 
We  set  our  secret  sins  in  the  light  of  our 
own  countenance,  and  having  ceased,  in  this 
finer  light,  to  judge  our  brothers,  we  pro- 
ceed to  judge  ourselves. 

The  inevitable  issue  of  the  life  and  hour 
contemplative  is  to  make  us  humble  before 
God  and  men,  and  every  native  hue  of  ar- 
rogance is  sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of 


THE  LIFE  CONTEMPLATIVE     19 

thought,  and  we  come  forth  clothed  with  the 
wedding-garment  of  humility. 

Again,  we  gain  another  view  of  self,  by 
contrasts.  We  reflect  upon  the  pages  of  an 
open  book,  upon  some  great  and  strong  or 
kind  and  loving  life.  In  the  stress  of  daily 
life  few  of  us  move  among  great  souls,  and 
it  is  easy  for  us  then  to  pray  in  pharisaic 
language,  and  thank  God  we  are  not  as 
other  men.  But  we  now  array  another  life 
beside  our  own.  It  is  in  the  light  of  con- 
templation that  our  self-complacent  satisfac- 
tion creeps  with  shame  into  the  shadows, 
and  we  become  ourselves. 

And  now,  back  from  self-judgment,  we  re- 
turn to  our  once-judged  brother.  We  see 
not  only  the  act  he  did,  but,  as  we  reflect  the 
more,  recall  his  life,  with  its  environment, 
so  much  meaner  in  its  moral  impulse  than 
our  own  surrounding.  Again  we  carry  back 
the  act  and  find  his  path  to  issue  in  a  well- 
meant  motive. 

The  grace  of  patience  cannot  live  without 
the  quiet  hour.  We  behold,  in  different 
light  from  that  of  noonday,  the  deeds  we 
did  and  the  things  we  said,  which  either 


20     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

justified  our  brother's  anger,  or  which  mag- 
nify the  patience  which  is  daily  shown  to 
us. 

In  clear  array  beside  our  own  untemperecl 
life,  beside  our  anger  at  a  wrong,  we  see  the 
wrong  we  did  and  which  our  brother  with  a 
loving  heart  forgave,  beside  the  wrong  done 
us  which  we  would  not  remit — our  own  for- 
given debts  and  unforgiven  debtors. 

There  is  another,  and  I  think  a  deeper 
aspect  of  the  life  contemplative.  The  life 
of  action  gives  to  us  a  knowledge  of  the  evil, 
as  we  see  the  wrongs  and  tragedies  of  hu- 
man sin  on  every  hand.  But  it  is  either 
wrong  in  general  terms  or  wickedness  in 
others  than  ourselves.  The  life  of  action 
seldom  begets  within  ourselves  the  sense  of 
sin.  It  is  in  the  silent  hour,  when  the  soul, 
in  the  inviolable  solitude  of  its  own  person- 
ality, looks,  not  at  the  things  without,  but  at 
the  heart  within,  that  we  gain  the  first  step 
to  a  holy  life. 

In  such  an  hour  we  are  not  alone.  One 
never  can  be  alone  with  self.  We  may 
withdraw  from  men,  but,  when  we  do,  there 
comes  the  sense  of  something  all  about  us, 


THE  LIFE  CONTEMPLATIVE    21 

and  we  hear  voices  which  are  not  our  own. 
We  hear,  as  we  have  never  heard  it  in  the 
busy  street,  the  voice  of  conscience,  which  is 
the  voice  of  God. 

The  idea  of  the  Infinite  is  hard  for  the 
mind,  but  simple  for  the  heart.  To  this  it  is 
but  holiness  and  purity.  And  when,  in  its 
light,  we  contrast  ourselves  we  see  our 
moral  want.  It  is  the  sense  of  righteous- 
ness, and  tells  us,  that,  just  as  we  to-day 
condemned  our  brother,  so  we  stand  con- 
demned. Moral  obligation  becomes  a  deep 
sense  and  we  see  it  as  we  did  not  in  the 
noonday  light. 

It  is  not  in  the  heat  of  our  discussion  that 
the  truth  emerges,  but  in  the  quiet  hour  of 
thought.  Here  we  see  evil  in  all  its  guilt 
and  goodness  in  all  its  beauty,  and  only 
here. 

But  we  have  not  alone  the  view  that 
humbles  us.  We  have  still  another  and  a 
better  view.  It  is  this  silent  hour  that  gives 
us,  not  alone  the  sense  of  what  we  are,  but 
better  visions  of  what  we  may  become,  dis- 
closures of  our  true  and  better  self. 

Its  lights  pass  over  from  humiliation  and 


22     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

contrition  to  prophecy  and  aspiration.  And 
we  may  go  down  from  the  mountain,  with 
Moses  and  with  Christ,  our  faces  shining, 
because  we  have  seen  God  and  goodness. 

Thus  do  our  views  of  life  become  correct 
and  we  shall  come  to  judge  ourselves  and 
others  with  both  righteousness  and  love. 

The  things  of  our  material  life,  its  losses 
and  its  gains,  recede  into  their  proper  back- 
ground. Without  the  putting  off  of  our 
humility  we  may  rise  to  the  sense  of  our 
own  worth  in  the  universe  of  God.  The 
estimate  of  men  is  set  at  naught.  If  in  the 
daytime  we  have  been  misjudged  and 
wronged,  we  shall  forgive  our  judges  and  be 
glad  of  a  good  conscience  before  ourselves 
and  God.  If  we  have  failed  to  enter  or  to 
win  the  race  for  earthly  things,  we  may  re- 
joice in  treasures  of  the  mind  and  heart. 

These  are  the  issues  of  the  life  and  hour 
contemplative.  In  it  we  get  our  viewpoint 
from  above  and  we  see  things  and  life  with 
the  very  eye  of  God.  With  this  hour  as  the 
beginning  for  the  deeds  of  life,  we  make  our 
approach  from  within.  It  is  the  regulation, 
controlling  and  determination  of  the  out- 


THE  LIFE  CONTEMPLATIVE    23 

ward  by  the  inward  life,  and  the  ship  is  no 
longer  cast  about  by  the  waves  of  the  ocean, 
but  rides  upon  them.  It  is  this  hour  that 
guides  life  in  its  movement  toward  its 
spiritual  ends. 

The  life  contemplative  is  deep  and  strong, 
does  its  work  under  a  divine  impulse  and 
guidance,  bears  its  sorrows  with  a  brave 
heart,  and  irradiates  its  common  daily  tasks 
with  the  sunlight  of  a  spiritual  meaning. 

"  Turn  then  away  from  life's  pageants, — turn, 
If  its  deep  story  thy  heart  would  learn  ! 
Ever  too  bright  is  that  outward  show, 
Dazzling  the  eyes  till  they  see  not  woe. 
But  lift  the  proud  mantle  which  hides  from  thy  view 
The  things  thou  sbouldst  gaze  on,  the  sad  and  the 

true  ; 

Nor  fear  to  survey  what  its  folds  conceal 
So  must  thy  spirit  be  taught  to  feel." 

We  need  to  do  the  work  of  Jesus  in  the 
world,  but  we  need  first  to  sit  at  Jesus' 
feet. 


The  Light  Within 


If  ...  the  light  that  is  in  thee  be  darkness,  how 
great  is  that  darkness  !  — Matt.  6 :  2J. 


The  Light  Within 


WE  live  a  twofold  and  contrasting  life. 
Man  is  a  creature  physical,  born  of  the 
dust ;  a  being  spiritual,  breathing  the  spirit 
of  the  Infinite,  whose  child  he  is.  There  is 
another  life  than  that  upon  the  street  and 
in  the  market-place,  other  realities  than 
those  of  outward  sense,  another  self  than 
that  which  buys  and  sells  and  eats  and  drinks. 
We  all  are  living  souls,  born  of  the  Eternal 
Spirit.  We  live  to-day,  in  time,  but  we  are 
living  an  eternal  life.  And  it  is  guided, 
nurtured  and  illumined,  not  by  the  noon- 
day glare  of  outward  earthly  things,  but  by 
an  inner  light. 

We  are  better  than  the  oxen  and  the 
sheep,  not  by  an  endowment  of  the  outer 
clay,  but  by  inbreathing  of  a  Holy  Spirit. 
Man  is  a  child  of  earth  and  man.  But  he  is 
more,  a  child  of  heaven  and  of  God.  His 
life  is  lived  amid  surroundings  of  material 
things,  but  is  a  heaven-imparted  gift.  He 
27 


28     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

has  relations  with  the  universe  and  God. 
He  has  a  spirit  endless  in  its  being,  that 
knows  of  neither  space  nor  time,  and  he  is 
an  immortal  soul. 

It  often  sadly  happens,  in  the  busy  cares 
of  his  material  existence,  its  weary  hours  of 
daily  toil,  the  meeting  of  its  earthly  wants, — 
that  the  larger  and  the  deeper  life  fades  from 
his  view  and  he  surrenders  the  diviner  gift 
of  his  eternal  spirit.  And  in  the  well-in- 
tended energy  and  perseverance  of  his 
human  and  material  ends,  the  spiritual 
meaning  of  his  personality  is  dimmed  and 
his  truer  life  extinguished.  He  who  is  born 
into  our  present  age  and  place  will  find  the 
trend  of  life  away  from  these  diviner  things, 
and  if  he  enters  on  the  sweeping  current  of 
his  generation,  will  move  away  from  his 
true  self,  the  inner  spirit  will  be  lost,  be- 
cause the  inner  light  will  fail. 

The  world  to-day  is  deaf  to  heavenly 
sounds.  The  voice  of  faith  is  being  silenced. 
The  eyes  are  blind  to  spiritual  truth.  The 
voices  of  the  earth  are  loud.  The  air  is  full 
of  its  attractive,  blinding  light.  Men  and 
women  are  evading  the  eternal  issues,  and 


THE  LIGHT  WITHIN        29 

ignoring  the  true  ends  of  life  for  meaner 
themes  and  baser  interests,  and  the  suprein- 
est  questions  of  their  minds  are  not  of 
things  invisible.  They  do  not  seek  and 
hoard  immortal  gifts.  For  prayer  there  is 
no  time,  nor  is  there  impulse.  For  earnest, 
serious  thought  no  hour  of  the  day  is  left. 
The  riches  of  the  earth  are  gained,  and  sub- 
stituted for  the  treasures  of  the  mind  and 
heart.  Eternity  is  lost  in  time,  and  we  are 
in  danger  lest  we  pass  beyond  the  vale  no 
better  than  we  came.  Yes,  God  has  made 
man  of  the  earthen  dust.  And  God  breathed 
upon  him  and  he  became  a  living  spirit.  The 
spirit  is  extinguished  in  the  interest  of 
the  dust  and  the  divine  image  and  the 
heavenly  superscription  are  perverted  and 
effaced. 

Let  us  be  willing  to  reflect  with  serious 
mind  and  meditative  heart  on  the  illumi- 
nation and  the  guidance  and  the  exaltation 
of  our  human  spirits  by  the  thought  of  God. 
Let  us  be  minded  to  acknowledge  the  gentle 
promptings  of  our  spiritual  sense,  to  use  the 
observation  of  the  soul  that  we  may  see  the 
meaning  of  the  universal  order,  and  let  us 


30     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

ask  our  inmost  hearts  if  it  be  that  the  inner 
light  has  grown  or  failed. 

The  most  of  us  do  not  commit  great  sins 
nor  violate  the  sentiment  of  men  about  us 
by  flagrant  acts  of  vice.  But  do  we  not 
forget,  once  and  again,  that  culture  is  the 
everlasting  law  of  growth  ?  that  every 
grace  of  heaven  with  which  we  are  endowed 
is  weakened  by  disuse  ?  and  if  the  culture 
of  the  soul  be  a  lost  art,  its  light  will  fade 
and  be  dissolved  into  the  light  of  common 
day? 

If  it  be  true  that  childhood's  faith  in  God 
and  the  eternal  things  is  lost,  or  lessened,  is 
it  not  because  the  spiritual  sense  is  dulled 
and  that  the  inner  light,  which  once  extin- 
guished ne'er  may  be  rekindled — that  the 
inner  light  has  become  darkness?  If  the 
impulse  to  our  prayers  is  gone,  if  things  no 
longer  are  appareled  in  celestial  light,  and 
shades  of  prison  house  have  closed  upon  the 
eye  of  faith,  it  is  not  that  the  futile  fancies 
of  an  earlier,  foolish  hour  have  been  chased 
away  by  wisdom's  dawn,  but  it  is  because 
the  inner  light  has  failed — the  light  within 
us  darkness  has  become. 


THE  LIGHT  WITHIN        31 

In  us  it  is  not  altogether  gone.  And 
while  it  is  the  mission  of  the  prophet  to 
forewarn  you  of  the  failing  light,  it  is  the 
better  task  to  tell  you  how  the  inner  light 
may  grow  from  day  to  day,  from  year  to 
year,  until  it  one  day  fades  away,  lost  in  the 
opening  vistas  of  a  better  light  beyond ;  to 
tell  you  that  the  noisy  street  of  daily  life 
may  not  drown  out  the  still  small  voice  of 
God,  and  that  while  other  men,  weary, 
jaded  and  disgusted  with  their  own  false 
ecstasies,  vainly  seeking  their  new  pleasures 
for  the  disenchanted  joys  of  yesterday  are 
overwrought,  incapable  of  higher  things — 
that  we  may  cultivate  and  gain  a  better  life, 
which  shall  uplift  our  joys,  enshrine  our 
sorrows,  deepen  our  best  experiences,  and 
that  we  may  shed  forth  a  light  to  show  to 
other  men  whose  lives  have  strayed  and 
been  misspent,  the  higher  and  the  better 
way. 

How  shall  we  recover  the  lost  inner  light 
and  how  shall  it  be  deepened  in  our  souls  ? 
The  means  and  way  are  very  plain  and  sim- 
ple. They  are  the  same  for  small  and  great, 
for  rich  and  poor,  for  simple  and  for  wise, 


32     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

for  the  great  minds  of  genius  and  for  us, 
plain,  common  people.  It  must  have,  first, 
the  art  of  which  we  thought  together  once 
before,  the  quiet,  silent  time,  the  life  and 
hour  contemplative. 

It  will  not  do  us  harm  if  we  shall  think 
of  this  again.  We  should  not  get  too  far 
away  from  earthly  life,  nor  be  in  danger  of 
too  great  an  other-worldliness,  if  we  should 
think  of  nothing  else  for  many  days  and 
nights. 

The  vision  of  the  Holy  City  did  not  come 
to  the  inspired  disciple  in  its  clearest  and 
sublimest  colors  while  he  mended  broken 
nets  or  caught  his  fish  beside  the  busy  sea- 
shore, but  on  his  solitary  Patmos  saw  he 
that  new  heaven  and  new  earth.  It  was 
not  on  the  busy  road,  but  when  alone  with 
self  and  God,  that  he  saw  the  tears  of  human 
sorrow  wiped  from  human  faces  by  the  ten- 
der hand  of  God,  that  he  beheld  the  day 
when  death  should  be  no  more,  nor  sorrow, 
neither  crying,  nor  the  sting  of  pain,  dis- 
cerned the  nightless  day  and  the  candle 
light  grow  dim  and  sun  go  out  beside  the 
better  and  the  heavenly  light.  It  is  when, 


THE  LIGHT  WITHIN        33 

call  it  unpractical  language  if  you  will,  it  is 
when  earth's  images  are  dimmed,  that  the 
sight  of  the  eternal  city  will  grow  bright. 

Just  as,  in  hours  contemplative,  our  views 
of  human  life  are  gained  in  their  correct 
perspective,  and  we  proceed  to  rightly 
judge  our  brothers  and  ourselves,  so  in 
these  hours  we  see  not  only  how  the  things 
of  earth  should  be,  but  what  the  things  of 
heaven  are.  And  as  we  lead  ourselves  from 
judgment  to  self-condemnation,  on  to  re- 
pentance for  the  sin  we  clearly  see,  in  the 
same  light  we  are  transfigured  and  become 
our  real  and  higher  selves,  as  thus  the  light 
within  us  grows. 

The  way  is  simple.  We  need  to  set  apart 
our  hours  and  days,  our  evenings  and  our 
Sabbaths,  for  the  growing  of  the  inner 
light.  The  poor  and  hard-worked  man,  toil- 
ing in  the  noisy  mill,  the  busy  man  of  com- 
merce and  of  trade,  immersed  for  six  long 
days  in  merchandise  and  figures,  the  hard- 
working housewife  with  her  deeply  laden 
cares — these  and  all  others,  need  these 
hours  and  days,  that  we  may  not  forget 
that  human  life  is  not  bound  up  in  iron 


34     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

wheels  and  whirling  belts,  by  offices  and 
counters,  nor  by  kitchen  walls;  that  we 
may  not  forget  that  we  are  more  than 
beasts  of  burden;  that  we  may  feel  the 
freedom  of  our  spirits,  may  see  the  inner 
light,  and  feel  its  glow.  Discouraged  by 
our  earthly  failures,  depressed  by  our  dis- 
couragements, we  need  the  shining  of 
the  inner  light  to  pierce  the  outer  dark- 
ness. 

It  grows  by  recognition,  by  taking  time 
to  think  of  it.  It  grows  by  seeking  to  get 
down  below  the  surface  of  our  common 
life,  by  love  of  truth,  of  the  unseen  realities 
beneath  things  seen.  But,  though  the  inner 
light  must  thus  have  periods  of  renewal  and 
of  deepening,  it  need  not  go  out  between 
them.  Thus  nurtured,  in  its  light  the  com- 
mon things  of  life  may  be  transfigured,  and 
they  will  shed  again  reflected  light  to  make 
it  brighter.  It  grows  by  using  it  to  light 
with. 

I  know  we  cannot  always  leave  our  tasks 
and  occupations  that  we  may  cultivate  our 
spiritual  life.  And  we  need  not.  The  in- 
ner light  must  not  be  closed,  like  the  dark- 


THE  LIGHT  WITHIN        35 

lantern,  in  the  busy  hour  of  day.  If  here 
it  shines  it  will  irradiate  our  common 
tasks  and  they  will  be  no  longer  common. 
And  we  shall  find  that  toil,  and  even  disap- 
pointment, may  be  used  to  serve  the  in- 
terests of  the  inner  life  and  light. 

It  grows  in  our  experiences  of  sorrow  and 
of  sadness  if  we  see  them  right.  It  may  be 
that  a  life  of  love  and  a  loved  life  goes  out 
from  ours.  We  follow  it  beyond,  by  its  own 
light,  and  it  will  lead  us  to  a  place  of  holiness 
and  beauty  in  whose  atmosphere  the  outer 
lights  of  life  are  dimmed  and  only  there 
the  inner  light  is  seen. 

It  grows,  again,  by  impartation.  The 
light  it  sheds  becomes  its  own  again.  And  it 
may  be  translated  into  terms  of  earthly 
service.  We  may  transmute  it  into  sympa- 
thy, it  shines  in  charity,  in  daily  goodness 
and  in  love.  It  grows  by  being  used  in 
form  of  deeds  to  men  which  are  true  sacri- 
fices to  a  worshiped  God  and  which,  done  in 
the  name  of  Christ,  are  done  for  him.  It  is 
gained  by  most  of  us  by  impartation.  It  is 
reflected  and  reflecting  light.  To  gain  in 
deeper  measure,  go  stand  within  the  shadow 


36     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

of  some  great  soul  whose  shadow  is  the 
light.  Get  into  contact  with  great  minds 
and  hearts.  It  grows  thus  by  receiving. 
Go  now,  impart  it  to  another.  The  more 
it  is  shed  the  more  it  grows. 

It  comes  by  wanting  it,  and  never  unen- 
treated.  It  gains  by  what  the  saints  have 
called  by  the  almost  forgotten  name  of 
prayer.  It  is  the  opening  of  the  mind  to 
truth,  the  opening  of  the  heart  to  love. 
The  inner  light  will  fail  and  flicker  and 
will  ultimately  die,  if  we  forget  to  pray 
that  it  should  stay. 

A  blind  man  feels  his  hesitating,  trackless 
way  across  the  busy  street.  It  is  a  sad,  pa- 
thetic sight — the  faltering  step  of  him  who 
goes  about  this  world  of  beauty  and  who 
cannot  see  its  many  glories ;  to  whom  the 
orb  of  heaven  is  but  a  glimmer  or  perhaps 
the  densest  darkness ;  to  whom  trees  are 
never  green,  the  summer  sky  not  blue ;  for 
whom  there  is  no  autumn  sunset  in  its  fading 
glow  ;  whose  darkened  eye  can  never  see  the 
human  face  he  loves ;  to  whom  no  eye 
speaks  its  affection  and  who  sees  no  look  of 
human  sympathy  and  beholds  no  smile  of 


THE  LIGHT  WITHIN        37 

joy ;  to  whom  this  world  with  all  its  beauty 
is  but  one  great,  dark,  unfathomable  and  un- 
glimmered  night.  Let  us  be  reverently 
grateful  that  we  are  not  blind. 

But  may  we  not  be  ?  All  about  us,  here 
and  now,  are  sights  and  visions  of  eternal 
truths  and  beauties  which  we  have  not  seen. 
The  scenes  beheld  by  sense  and  these  ex- 
periences of  our  nature  are  at  best  but  the 
suggestions  of  realities  of  spirit.  The  hand 
that  touches  ours,  the  tender  kiss  of  love, 
the  bending  of  the  loving  mother  over  the 
cradled  child — all  these  are  but  sad  mock- 
eries if  they  be  nothing  more  than  instincts 
natural  and  human.  We  must  invest  them 
with  a  spiritual  meaning.  For  if  they  be 
but  things  of  one  short  day,  and  all  are  one 
day  to  be  blotted  out,  life  is  but  mocking 
us  and  prophecy  is  but  a  lie.  Unless  it  be 
that  these  things  have  beginning  and  their 
end  in  heaven,  they  are  but  flashes  of  a  mo- 
mentary light  which  makes  the  blackness 
only  darker. 

It  is  by  looking  thus  at  life,  investing  it 
with  all  its  holy  meaning,  that  we  shall 
think  and  live,  by  guidance  of  the  inner 


38     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

light  which  comes  by  earnest  wanting,  which 
grows  by  shining  and  by  use,  until  it  shall 
be  one  day  lost  in  the  better  light  beyond 
to  which  it  surely  leads. 


The   Growth  in  Grace 


Of    his   fulness   we   all   received,    and   grace   for 
grace. — John  i .-  16. 


The  Growth  in  Grace 


THE  stronger  and  interpreting  expression 
of  the  Greek  original  of  the  text  is,  "  grace 
instead  of  grace,"  grace  in  place  of  grace, 
grace  upon  grace.  The  old  is  superseded  by 
the  new ;  or,  better  still,  the  new  is  added  to 
the  old ;  or,  better  still  than  that,  the  new 
fulfils,  completes  the  old.  The  good  is  re- 
placed by  the  better.  Or,  as  another  writer 
of  the  Holy  Scriptures  has  expressed  the 
method  of  the  Infinite,  "  He  taketh  away 
the  first,  that  he  may  establish  the  second." 
The  true  and  vital  experience  in  Christ  is 
this  unceasing,  constant  paradox.  God  ever 
satisfies  the  present  and  yet  gives  to  us  de- 
sires for  a  future  more  and  better.  Out  of 
his  fulness  he  fulfils  our  wants,  and  yet, 
with  the  fulfilment,  comes  the  better, 
deeper  want.  We  evermore  pursue  a  beck- 
oning and  a  flying  goal.  God  never  leaves 
us  where  we  are,  but  ever  would  impel  and 
draw  us  onward,  giving  now  of  grace,  but 
41 


42     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

with  the  giving  and  receiving,  showing  the 
ideal  beyond.  "  I  go,"  said  Jesus,  "  to  pre- 
pare a  place  for  you."  "  But  I  will  come 
again,  and  receive  you  unto  myself;  that 
where  I  am,  there  ye  may  be  also."  Thus 
the  acquiring  of  his  fulness  is  a  perpetual 
substitution  of  the  better  for  the  good,  and 
for  the  better,  the  better  still ;  of  grace  for 
grace. 

Religious  life  may  be  conceived  in  many 
ways,  and  all  of  them  are  true,  though  par- 
tial. It  may  be  thought  of  as  a  single  deed, 
done  once  for  all.  We  yield  ourselves  to 
God,  give  him  our  wills,  confess  our  sins, 
receive  forgiveness,  and  we  thus  become  re- 
ligious. Our  experience  with  Christ  is  thus 
a  definite  and  momentary  act,  confined  to  a 
precisely  bounded  time. 

This  inward  action  of  the  heart  takes  on 
its  outward  forms  and  our  religious  life  be- 
comes observance  through  our  outward, 
hallowed  and  time-honored  ceremonies.  "We 
worship  God,  we  praise  his  goodness,  and 
we  offer  up  our  prayers  with  bowed  heads 
and  bended  knees.  We  sit  in  fellowship  to- 
gether at  the  sacred  table  to  the  memory  of 


THE  GROWTH  IN  GRACE  43 

his  holy  Son.  We  sanctify  with  forms  and 
with  observances,  and  call  it,  and  we  call  it 
rightly,  if  it  be  rightly  done,  religion. 

Again  we  look  at  the  religious  life  as  an 
adherence  to  the  truth,  we  worship  God 
with  mind  as  well  as  heart.  And  thus  to 
be  religious  is,  with  consecrated  reason,  to 
believe  in  God's  eternal  verities. 

Far  better,  we  are  wont  to  think,  it  is  a 
way  of  living.  It  is  the  faithful  doing  of 
our  duties,  the  feeding  of  the  hungry  and  the 
helping  of  the  poor.  We  comfort  those  who 
sorrow  and  we  weep  with  those  that  mourn. 
Religion  pure  and  undefiled  is  this,  to  visit 
the  fatherless  and  the  widows  in  affliction, 
and  to  keep  oneself  unspotted  from  the  world. 
It  is  the  meeting  of  our  human  obligations. 
It  is  a  strong  and  careful  moral  life. 

More  than  all  these,  and  only  these  be- 
cause of  this,  it  is  a  true  and  loving  spirit. 
We  realize  that  outward  works,  whether 
they  be  of  worship  to  God  or  of  charity  to 
men,  rendered  to  the  Father  by  a  direct 
access,  or  rendered  to  him  through  his  chil- 
dren, have  no  value  for  us,  if  considered  only 
in  themselves,  as  outward  acts.  The  inner 


44    THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

motive  of  the  heart  determines.  The  deed 
and  observation  must  be  prompted  and  in- 
cited by  the  spirit  that  is  right.  And  so,  at 
last,  religion  has  become  an  ultimate  condi- 
tion of  the  heart. 

All  these  conceptions  are  both  good  and 
true.  Keligion  is  at  first  confession.  It 
is  restoration.  Nor  can  it  live  without  its 
outward  forms  expressing  inward  feelings. 
It  is  a  creed,  allegiance  to  and  love  of  God's 
eternal  truth.  It  is  made  up  of  deeds  of 
charity  and  goodness  in  the  needy  world. 
It  is  a  state  of  mind  and  heart,  and  cannot 
be  without  these  things  in  symmetry  and 
harmony  together. 

But  I  would  have  you  see  another  view 
and  behold  religion  as  a  constant  prophecy 
of  things  that  are  to  be.  For  best  of  all,  it 
is  a  life  that  grows.  Anticipation  is  its  law. 
Hope  is  its  joy.  It  has  a  future.  The  only 
joy  of  life,  to  a  true  soul  is  in  the  conscious- 
ness that  he  is  going  on. 

We  give  ourselves  to  God  in  one  supreme, 
determined  act,  but  do  not  live  a  true  relig- 
ious life  unless,  from  day  to  day,  the  mean- 
ing of  the  act  is  deepened  in  our  souls. 


THE  GROWTH  IN  GRACE   45 

Confession  must  become  more  humble,  gen- 
uine and  real.  The  consciousness  of  sonship 
to  the  Father  must  be  deeper.  Beginnings 
must  be  thought  of  as  beginnings,  and  not 
as  ends  once  and  forever  gained. 

Observances  must  gain  in  sacramental 
meaning.  Our  prayer  to-day  should  bring 
us  nearer  God  than  yesterday's,  our  worship 
should  be  more  in  spirit  and  in  truth,  our 
hearts  more  grateful  for  the  gifts  of  God, 
and  these  more  unforgotten,  the  holy  place 
where  we  are  wont  to  worship  and  to  pray 
more  sacred  and  more  loved  and  sought. 
These  things  should  gain  in  sacred  meaning 
as  we  older  grow. 

The  truth  of  God  and  Christ  is  not  at- 
tained except  by  growth.  The  ages  witness 
to  the  method  of  God's  revelation.  From 
patriarch  to  prophet  and  from  prophet  to 
apostle,  of  his  fulness  they  received,  grace 
for  grace,  from  age  to  age.  The  deep  and 
earnest  thinker  of  the  present  time  sees 
more  of  truth  than  they,  if  he  will  stand  on 
their  strong  shoulders,  and  will  look  for  it. 
So  every  heart  should  be  unfolding,  every 
mind  enlarging,  before  new  and  better  views 


46     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

of  truth.  The  individual  experience  is  an 
epitome  of  that  of  ages.  God's  is  a  growing 
revelation  of  the  truth  to  every  growing 
human  mind. 

The  deeds  of  life  ought  to  be  getting  bet- 
ter. Yesterday's  good  act  should  be  re- 
placed by  better  acts  to-day,  the  victory  of 
patience  surer,  compassion  find  its  added 
object  and  its  deeper  sense,  the  sins  which 
do  so  easily  beset  us,  less  easily  besetting, 
our  lives  more  thoughtful  and  more  righteous. 

And  now,  just  as  we  saw  the  heart  within 
to  give  the  moral  value  to  the  act  without, 
so  must  our  lives  develop  by  the  ever  grow- 
ing, transformation  of  the  heart.  To-mor- 
row's deed  may  be  the  repetition  of  to-day's 
and  yet  be  better,  be  it  prompted  by  the 
purer  motive,  the  act  of  love  more  loving, 
the  word  of  consolation  uttered  with  a 
softer  voice,  the  act  of  probity  and  honesty 
less  in  observance  of  propriety  to  meet  the 
eyes  of  men,  more  of  the  natural  and  ready 
utterance  of  a  good  and  honest  heart.  Thus 
the  confession  of  the  lips,  the  reverential  act 
of  homage,  the  prayer  of  aspiration,  the  ac- 
ceptance of  the  truth,  the  deed  of  goodness 


THE  GROWTH  IN  GRACE   47 

may  remain  the  same  to  outward  seeing  and 
may  yet  be  infinitely  better,  be  it  sanctified 
by  a  purer,  better  life  within.  Life's  true 
experience  is  receiving  of  God's  fulness,  but 
it  is  a  constant  transformation,  of  a  grace  in 
place  of  grace,  of  good  to  better,  and  of 
height  to  higher. 

This  is  the  aim  of  a  religious  life,  not  to 
get  through  somehow  without  a  wreck  of 
what  we  are ;  not  holding  to  the  good  things 
that  we  have ;  but  a  life  that  cherishes  the 
good  because  it  prophesies  the  good  to  be. 
To  see  the  distant  scene  we  need  not  ask,  but 
we  must  ever  see  the  step  above  that 's  next. 

This  does  not  mean  that  any  of  us,  in 
weakness  as  we  are,  shall  never  lose  our 
momentary  ground.  Sufficient  it  may  be  if 
we  are  sure  our  forward  steps  are  oftenest 
and  longest. 

Grace  for  grace.  The  universe  reveals 
God's  method.  The  ages  of  the  cosmos  give 
us  record  of  his  constant  hand.  The  mind 
of  man  is  thus  expanded  and  unfolded,  and 
the  primer  of  to-day  leads  on  to  deeper 
knowledge  for  to-morrow. 

The    laws    of    the   eternal  are  a  unity 


48     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

throughout  the  universe.  Just  as  the 
mortal  body  grows,  and  as  the  mind  en- 
larges, so  is  it  with  the  human  spirit ;  our 
religious  life  is  the  unceasing  growing  of 
our  immortal  soul.  It  is  not  some  things 
superadded  from  without;  it  is  a  life 
within.  It  is  fulfilment.  It  is  the  realizing 
of  humanity  ideally  in  the  Creator's  image. 
We  are  children  of  God.  We  may  deny  our 
kinship ;  we  may  repress  it ;  we  may  let  it 
die.  True  life  is  in  its  nurture.  The  love  in 
us,  not  in  degree,  but  in  its  kind,  is  the  same 
love  that  is  in  Christ  and  God.  Religion  is 
the  culture  of  the  element  in  us  which  is  di- 
vine. Just  as  we  grow  from  childhood's 
ignorance  to  manhood's  knowledge,  and 
from  infant  weakness  to  maturer  strength, 
so  must  we  rise,  by  the  unceasing  culture  of 
our  souls,  toward  our  diviner  height. 

This  was  the  revelation  of  the  incarnation. 
Is  Jesus  the  Saviour  of  men  or  the  leader  of 
men?  This  is  the  answer:  he  saves  by 
leading.  This  ineffable  revealment  was  of 
a  humanity  in  its  ideal  and  true  relation  to 
God.  The  Son  of  man  is  the  ideal  for  the 
sons  of  men,  and  step  by  step  we  must  draw 


THE  GROWTH  IN  GRACE    49 

nearer  him;  to  Jordan  and  experience  the 
higher  self  within  us  and  the  call  that  comes 
to  it  from  heaven ;  into  the  wilderness  and 
crush  temptations ;  with  him  on  the  moun- 
tainside, and  in  the  light  of  his  transfigur- 
ation be  transfigured ;  go  with  him  to  the 
cross  and  rise  with  him  by  sacrifice. 

This  leads  us  into  life  eternal.  It  is  eter- 
nal life.  Thus  do  we  become  what  we  are. 
We  were  the  children  of  God.  We  are 
God's  children ;  but  we  are  yet  to  be  so, 
more  deeply  and  more  truly.  In  his  divine 
and  human  life  Jesus  reveals  himself  as  the 
interpreter  and  pledge  of  the  divine  within 
the  human,  perfected  in  his  holy  self,  un- 
realized and  prophetic  in  us  all.  "I  go — 
ahead — to  prepare  a  place  for  you."  "I 
come  again,  to  receive  you  to  myself  " — 
ever  leading,  ever  returning,  ever  drawing 
to  himself.  He  outgoes  us  with  his  good- 
ness, he  returns  to  us  with  his  love.  We 
stop  to  sin,  and  he  goes  on  and  leaves  us. 
He  comes  again ;  we  see  our  wrong  in  his 
pure  light  and  let  him  lead  us  on  away  from 
it.  Religion  is  the  incarnation  growingly 
realized  in  men. 


50     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

Grace  for  grace.  Ever  satisfying  by  un- 
satisfaction ;  to-day's  end  but  to-morrow's 
starting-point ;  receiving  the  divine  fulness, 
and  by  it  growing  empty  ;  pursuing  an  ever- 
receding  goal.  It  is  only  saying  that  the 
more  we  have  the  more  we  want  to  have  ; 
that  as  we  realize  its  unattainableness,  we 
also  may  be  sure  we  are  attaining. 

Is  life  unfolding  from  within,  or  is  it  an 
infolding  from  without  ?  There  is  no  argu- 
ment betwixt  the  two.  It  is  both.  Like 
only  can  respond  to  like.  It  is  God  beck- 
oning to  man,  and  it  is  the  divine  in  man 
reaching  out  to  God. 

It  is  not  always  so.  It  may  be  we  were 
more  religious  in  our  childhood  days  than 
now ;  but  it  ought  not  to  be.  The  graces 
may  be  made  to  flee  before  advancing  years, 
but  age  should  mantle  and  adorn  the  brow 
with  deepening  goodness. 

Keligion,  thus,  has  a  beginning,  but  is  not 
an  act  in  time.  It  finds  expression  for 
itself,  but  is  not  an  expression.  It  is  con- 
templation of  the  truth  by  mind,  but  not  a 
proposition  of  the  intellect.  It  is  a  doing 
of  deeds,  but  consists  not  in  the  number  of 


THE  GROWTH  IN  GRACE     51 

them.  It  inheres  in  a  spirit  of  love,  but  is 
not  changeless.  It  is  all  these  unfolding, 
deepening,  growing  with  the  years.  It  is 
development  of  an  initial  act.  It  is  the 
deepening  reverence  of  observance.  It  is 
the  seeing  more  and  more  of  truth  and 
yielding  more  and  more  completely  to  it. 
It  is  the  living  of  a  good,  but  also  of  a  bet- 
ter life;  the  doing  of  life's  deeds  with 
deeper,  finer  motives;  the  culture  of  the 
soul ;  the  receiving  of  his  fulness,  grace  for 
grace;  the  rich  grace  for  the  richer;  the 
life  divine  within  us  growing,  and  the  good 
becoming  better. 


God  With  Us 

(A  Christmas  Meditation) 


And    they   shall    call    his  name  Emmanuel,  which 
.  .  .  is,  God  with  us. — Matt,  i  :  23. 


God  With  Us 


"  AND  they  shall  call  his  name  Emmanuel, 
which  ....  is,  God  with  us."  Thus  spake 
the  holy  prophet  who  long  foresaw  the 
coming  of  a  deeper  and  diviner  meaning  into 
human  life.  The  race  moved  on.  The  dark- 
ness of  its  ignorance  and  sin  was  growingly 
dispelled  by  the  light  shed  from  its  holy  seers, 
its  righteous  prophets,  its  singers  of  heavenly 
anthems,  its  good  and  holy  men.  The  com- 
ing light  is  ever  foreseen  by  the  purer  of 
heart,  and  all  history  is  the  fulfilment 
of  their  prophecy.  Goodness  ever  hopes 
for  itself  and  sees  the  future  with  the  eye 
of  faith.  Thus  men,  born  out  of  due  time, 
lived  in  the  darkness  of  their  age,  saw- 
through  its  mists  and  shadows,  and  beheld 
the  light  beyond,  of  which  the  glow  within 
their  souls  was  but  the  harbinger  and 
prophecy. 

One  after  the  other,  the  Father  of  all 
55 


56     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

human  children  sent  his  messengers  of 
heaven  to  prepare  the  way.  Stoned  and 
rejected  by  the  many,  they  each  had  gath- 
ered men  whose  eyes,  looking  from  the 
windows  of  pure  souls,  beheld  the  shining 
light  and  the  wicket  gate  to  which  they 
pointed.  They  left  their  marks  upon  the 
race,  and  their  disciples  took  the  light  which 
they  passed  on,  and  each  succeeding  gener- 
ation made  it  brighter  till  the  Day-star 
should  appear.  This  is  the  meaning  of  the 
older  Holy  Scriptures. 

Humanity  has  never  been  left  alone  with- 
out the  God  whose  child  it  is.  Its  theoph- 
anies  have  been  in  human  forms,  and  the- 
ophanies  in  human  lives  did  not  begin  or 
end  at  Bethlehem.  His  Spirit  has  ever 
clothed  itself  with  human  personalities  who 
have  uttered  his  loving  message  or  warned 
of  the  impending  fate  of  sin.  Thus  the 
way  of  the  Lord  had  been  prepared. 
Straight  through  life's  desert  they  made  a 
highway  for  our  God.  The  glory  of  the 
Lord  was  growingly  revealed. 

But  by  and  by  the  prophets  were  all  dead, 
and  God  had  seemed  to  cease  to  speak. 


GOD  WITH  US  57 

The  race  was  left  a  little  time  in  darkness 
that  it  might  realize  itself.  But  the  Father 
had  not  forgotten  his  erring  children.  Again, 
first  to  the  holy  few  who  looked  for  the  re- 
demption of  Israel,  came  foregleams  of  the 
coming  day.  Men  had  made  human  life  a 
wilderness,  from  whence  again  the  voice  of 
heaven  spake  through  human  lips.  The 
kingdom  of  heaven  was  at  hand.  Thus  far 
and  now  the  voice  had  uttered  the  procla- 
mation of  heaven,  but  in  the  terms  and 
language  of  an  earthly  mind.  In  judgment 
should  the  kingdom  be  fulfilled.  Its  Holy 
One  should  come.  Thus  far  they  spake 
aright.  But  He  should  come  with  sword  of 
vengeance  and  a  flaming  fire. 

At  last,  in  the  fulness  of  time,  from  the 
Father,  who  had  been  leading  his  children 
on  although  they  wist  it  not,  or  knew  him 
not  as  Father,  the  full  light  from  heaven 
came. 

And  again,  O  child  of  God,  remember, 
again  it  streamed  from  a  human  face  and 
God's  voice  spake  from  the  human  lips  of 
another  child  of  God.  It  was  God  come, 
not  only  to  live  in  a  man,  but  come  to  live 


58    THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

with  men.  The  sacred  meaning  of  it  is,  he 
came  to  live  in  you  and  me  and  all  our 
brothers  and  sisters  in  the  world.  This  we 
shall  see,  and  how,  a  little  farther  on. 

He  came,  not  to  destroy  humanity,  but  to 
fulfil  it.  He  came,  not  to  take  men's  lives 
because  they  sinned,  but  to  give  them  new 
lives  that  they  should  sin  no  more ;  not  to 
dash  out  their  hopes,  but  to  ignite  them ;  not 
simply  to  rebuke  them  for  what  they  had  not 
been,  but  to  show  them  what  they  ought  to  be. 
He  came  to  tell  every  meanest,  humblest  and 
obscurest  man  that  his  ideal  self  was  in  the 
image  of  God,  and  that  He  was  come  to  re- 
store the  likeness. 

In  the  fulness  of  his  goodness  and  his 
glory  God  was  to  come  among  men.  It  was 
by  a  very  simple  way.  Mark  the  method. 
He  found,  first,  a  good  and  pure  and  holy 
woman.  One  by  one  he  was  to  take  every 
relation  of  human  life  and  invest  it  with  a 
divine  meaning,  and  he  began  with  mother- 
hood. 

"  And  the  angel  came  in  unto  her,  and  said, 
Hail,  thou  that  art  highly  favoured,  the  Lord  is 
with  thee." 


GOD  WITH  US  59 

Page  upon  page  of  learned  disquisition 
have  been  written  to  interpret  this,  and  most 
of  them  have  never  touched  its  deeper  mean- 
ing. It  is  a  strangely  unpoetic  and  material- 
istic mind  that  lowers  the  sublime  and  beau- 
tiful idea  of  this  transcendently  told  story 
by  making  it  the  subject  of  a  cold  and  hard 
analysis.  Is  the  story  true  ?  To  ask  the 
question  is  to  show  that  we  have  missed  its 
deepest  meaning. 

"  And  the  angel  answered  and  said  unto  her, 
The  Holy  Spirit  shall  come  upon  thee,  and  the 
power  of  the  Highest  shall  overshadow  thee : 
Therefore  also  that  holy  being  which  shall  be 
born  of  thee  shall  be  called  the  Son  of  God." 

The  first  mark  of  the  incarnation  was  the 
stamping  of  motherhood  with  its  divineness. 
There  is  no  holier  Christmas  lesson.  For 
over  every  mother,  if  she  will  but  look  and 
listen,  is  the  angel.  Upon  her  is  the  shadow 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and 

"  Heaven  lies  about  us  in  our  infancy ! " 

"  The  Soul  that  rises  with  us,  our  life's  Star, 
Hath  had  elsewhere  its  setting, 
And  cometh  from  afar  : 


60     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 


Not  in  entire  f orgetfulness, 
And  not  in  utter  nakedness, 
But  trailing  clouds  of  glory  do  we  come 
From  God,  who  is  our  home." 

"And  she  brought  forth  her  firstborn  son, 
and  wrapped  him  in  swaddling  clothes,  and  laid 
him  in  a  manger  ;  because  there  was  no  room 
for  them  in  the  inn." 

There  was  no  room.  An  infant  prophecy 
of  the  life  that  was  to  be.  He  never  did 
find  room.  He  never  has  found  room. 
Look  for  him  now  and  you  will  find  him  in 
the  manger  of  the  houses  of  men.  He  finds 
your  heart  and  mine  so  crowded  that  he 
often  has  to  wait  outside.  They  did  not 
know  he  was  from  God.  We  do.  "  And 
they  shall  call  his  name  Emmanuel,  which 
...  is,  God  with  us."  God  with  us  in  pa- 
tience, in  forbearance,  long-suffering,  long 
waiting,  and  in  love. 

The  inn  was  filled  with  busy  and  im- 
portant men — men  whose  minds  were  filled 
with  earthly  cares,  their  lives  with  earthly 
pleasures,  and  their  barns  with  earthly 
plenty;  men  of  the  world,  we  call  them. 
They  did  not  see  him  and  they  did  not 
learn  that  he  was  there. 


GOD  WITH  US  61 


But  some  men  found  it  out. 

"  There  were  in  the  same  country  shepherds 
abiding  in  the  field,  keeping  watch  over  their 
flock  by  night." 

The  breadth  and  openness  of  the  world 
we  live  in  is  what  gives  us  open  hearts. 
The  angelic  host  was  not  chanting  in  one 
place.  It  was  everywhere.  It  was  the 
same  sky  over  both  field  and  inn.  God 
does  not  speak  more  to  some  men  than  to 
their  brethren,  but  to  all  alike.  It  is  the 
difference  in  their  hearing.  They  put  things 
between  themselves  and  heaven.  The  men 
and  women  in  the  inn  did  not  hear.  We 
might  all  get  nearer  heaven  and  might 
better  hear  its  voices,  did  we  get  nearer 
nature's  heart,  and  let  the  heavens  declare 
God's  glory. 

"  And,  lo,  the  angel  of  the  Lord  came  npon 
them,  and  the  glory  of  the  Lord  shone  ronnd 
about  them.  .  .  .  And  the  angel  said  unto 
them,  Fear  not :  for,  behold,  I  bring  yon  good 
tidings  of  great  joy,  which  shall  be  to  all  peo- 
ple. .  .  .  And  suddenly  there  was  with  the 
angel  a  multitude  of  the  heavenly  host  praising 
God,  and  saying,  Glory  to  God  in  the  highest, 
and  on  earth  peace,  good  will  toward  men." 


62     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

That  host  will  be  there  to-night.  'Tis 
there  this  morning.  'Tis  always  there. 
And  you  and  I  can  hear  it  if  we  will. 

But  we  have  here  another  infant  prophecy. 
Shepherds  were  very  humble  people.  They 
were  the  common  workmen  of  their  day, 
such  men  as  those  who  run  our  cars  and 
drive  our  wagons  and  build  our  houses  now, 
neither  great  nor  wise,  as  greatness  and 
wisdom  go  in  this  world.  A  little  later  on 
a  few  plain,  humble  fishermen  gave  us  this 
morning's  message. 

First  of  all,  the  Christmas  lesson  of 
humility.  But  deeper  is  this  lesson.  The 
lowly,  plain  and  humble  men  and  things  of 
human  life  are  sanctified. 

"  They  shall  call  his  name  Emmanuel, 
which  is,  God  with  us."  God  with  us,  with 
the  poorest  and  obscurest  of  us,  hallowing 
with  a  divine  glory  the  humble  life  of 
humble  men,  if  they  will  but  listen  for  the 
song  and  look  for  the  angel. 

I  love  this  lesson,  telling  us  that  God  will 
speak  to  men,  and  live  with  men,  and  care 
for  men,  and  honor  men  whose  hands  are 
hardened  and  whose  faces  blackened  with 


GOD  WITH  US  63 

the  dust  of  mines,  whose  cheeks  are  browned 
with  the  cold  winter  winds  that  blow  upon 
the  street-car,  whose  backs  are  weary  carry- 
ing our  heavy  burdens,  whose  habiliments 
are  rough,  whose  steps  are  heavy,  whose 
speech  is  poor,  whose  ways  uncouth.  It 
tells  us  more:  it  tells  us  we  should  care 
for  them,  and  never  should  despise  them. 
They  are  God's  children. 

And  yet  men  need  not  be  shepherds  that 
they  may  see  and  follow  the  star  of  faith. 
There  is  a  wisdom  and  a  culture  of  men  that 
is  foolishness  with  God.  There  is,  as  well,  a 
true  and  humble  human  wisdom.  While 
these  shepherds  were  listening, 

' '  Behold,  there  came  wise  men  from  the  east 
to  Jerusalem,  saying,  Where  is  he  that  is  born 
King  of  the  Jews?  for  we  have  seen  his  star  in 
the  east,  and  are  come  to  worship  him.  .  .  . 
And,  lo,  the  star,  which  they  saw  in  the  east, 
went  before  them,  till  it  came  and  stood  over 
where  the  young  child  was.  .  .  .  And  when 
they  were  come  into  the  house,  they  .  .  . 
fell  down,  and  worshipped  him :  and  .  .  . 
presented  unto  him  gifts  ;  gold,  and  frankincense, 
and  myrrh." 

The  rich  gifts  of  intellect  and  mind  are 
not  despised  by  God. 


64    THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

"  And  they  shall  call  his  name  Emmanuel 
— God  with  us."  God  with  us,  whether  sim- 
ple or  wise,  whether  in  the  cloistered 
study  or  the  open  fields.  And  if  the  un- 
learned, poor  and  humble  be  yet  rich  in  the 
divine  endowments  of  the  conscience  and 
the  soul,  he  is  nearer  heaven  and  a  truer 
child  of  God. 

"  And  they  shall  call  his  name  Emmanuel, 
which  is,  God  with  us."  A  human  life  filled 
with  the  divine.  A  human  life  revealing  a 
divine  holiness  of  living.  A  human  life 
sanctifying  our  human  relations  with  a  di- 
vine meaning.  A  human  life  telling  us  that 
we  are  children  of  God.  A  human  life 
which  says  to  us  that  we  are  not  the  crea- 
tures of  the  dust  with  transient  lives  which 
one  day  shall  be  blotted  out.  A  human  life 
which  fixed  our  loves,  our  friendships  and 
our  highest  joys  in  an  eternal  setting.  A 
human  life  which  tells  us  that  our  birth- 
place was  in  heaven  and  invests  the  open- 
ing vistas  of  our  untrodden  future  with  a 
sweet  attractiveness  and  a  divine  glory, 
telling  us  of  the  divine  meaning  of  every- 
thing that's  human;  showing  us  that  the 


GOD  WITH  US  65 

humblest  and  meanest  of  our  conditions  are 
full  of  the  loftiest  and  most  heavenly  possi- 
bilities, translating  our  daily  earthly  life 
into  the  speech  of  heaven. 

Over  the  mean  manger  in  which  the  Holy 
Child  was  cradled  shone  the  wise  men's 
star.  Over  the  fields  of  the  shepherd  work- 
ing-men hovered  the  angels  of  the  heavenly 
choir.  This  is  the  revelation  of  the  divine 
that  stands  over,  and  everywhere  surrounds, 
our  human  lives,  revealing  their  sacred 
meaning  and  waiting  to  assume  their  com- 
mon forms,  clothing  motherhood  and  child- 
hood with  a  heavenly  garment,  investing 
the  labor  of  human  hands  with  beauty, 
consecrating  wisdom  to  a  search  for  sacred 
truth. 

There  never  was  a  story  like  this.  There 
never  has  been  such  a  story  since.  Its  truth 
is  sealed  to  some.  It  is  so  sealed  to  every 
man  who  does  not  invest  womanhood  and 
motherhood  and  childhood  with  holy  mean- 
ings ;  sealed  to  every  man  who  does  not  see 
in  wife  and  mother  something  for  a  rever- 
ent and  deeply  sacred  love  ;  sealed  to  every 
mother  upon  whom,  in  motherhood,  the 


66     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

Holy  Spirit  has  not  cast  its  overshadowing 
presence ;  sealed  to  all  whose  eyes  and  ears 
are  not  open  to  divine  scenes  and  voices; 
closed  to  every  human  life  that  does  not 
see  and  feel  the  beauty  of  sacrifice  and 
service. 

To  those  who  do,  this  Christmas  story  is 
a  disclosure  of  what  human  life  ought  to  be. 
It  tells  them  what  God  thinks  of  his  chil- 
dren and  what  they  ought  to  think  of  one 
another  and  themselves.  It  tells  us  that 
men  are  children  of  God.  It  reveals  ideal 
humanity.  The  life  of  Jesus  tells  us  what 
we  ought  to  be  and  shows  us  what  we 
ought  to  do ;  that  we  should  be  brave  and 
kind  and  loving  and  patient  and  true.  It 
tells  us  that  we  should  be  good,  like  God. 

In  Jesus  we  see  the  revelation  of  the  ca- 
pacity of  our  human  souls  to  receive  God. 
It  is  our  true  and  realized  humanity  re- 
vealed to  our  untrue,  unrealized  selves.  In 
him,  God  became  partaker  of  the  life  of 
men,  that  men  might  be  partakers  in  the  life 
of  God. 

Let  this  vision  once  be  seen  and  cherished, 
let  this  story  thus  be  heard  with  its  interpre- 


GOD  WITH  US  67 

tation,  and  Wordsworth's  trend  of  human 
life  must  be  reversed, — 

The  ' '  Shades  of  the  prison-house  [will  not]  begin  to  close 

Upon  the  growing  Boy, 
But  He  beholds  the  light,  and  whence  it  flows, 

He  sees  it  in  his  joy  ; 

The  Youth,  who  daily  [nearer  towards]  the  [light"] 
[Shall]  travel,  still  is  Nature's  Priest, 

And  by  the  vision  splendid 

Is  on  his  way  attended  ; 
The  Man  [shall  never  see]  it  die  away, 
[Nor]  fade  into  the  light  of  common  day." 

Felicia  Hemans  has  more  truly  sung  and 
prayed,— 

"  O  lovely  voices  of  the  sky, 

That  hymned  the  Saviour's  birth  ! 
Are  ye  not  singing  still  on  high, 

Ye  that  sang,  '  Peace  on  Earth '  ? 
To  us  yet  speak  the  strains 

Wherewith,  in  days  gone  by, 
Ye  blessed  the  Syrian  swains, 

O  voices  of  the  sky  ! 

' '  O  clear  and  shining  light !  whose  beams 

That  hour  heaven's  glory  shed 
Around  the  palms,  and  o'er  the  streams, 

And  on  the  shepherd's  head  : 
Be  near,  through  life  and  death, 

As  in  that  holiest  night 
Of  Hope,  and  Joy,  and  Faith, 

O  clear  and  shining  light ! 


68     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 


"O  Star  !  which  led  to  him  whose  love 

Brought  down  man's  ransom  free; 
Where  art  thou  ?    Midst  the  hosts  above 

May  we  still  gaze  on  thee  ? 
In  heaven  thou  art  not  set, 

Thy  rays  earth  might  not  dim, 
Send  them  to  guide  us  yet, 

O  Star  which  led  to  him  !  " 

If  we  shall  see  to-day  the  inner  meaning 
of  the  advent,  we  shall,  with  George  Eliot, 
pray  and  aspire, — 

"May  I  reach 

That  purest  heaven,  be  to  other  souls 
The  cup  of  strength  in  some  great  agony, 
Enkindle  generous  ardor,  feed  pure  love, 
Beget  the  smiles  that  have  no  cruelty  — 
Be  the  sweet  presence  of  a  good  diffused, 
And  in  diffusion  ever  more  intense. 
So  shall  I  join  the  choir  invisible 
Whose  music  is  the  gladness  of  the  world." 

The  incarnation  was  in  man  that  it  might 
be  in  men. 

O  child  of  God,  as  God  lived  in  his  Son, 
so  would  he  live  in  his  sons  and  children. 

"  Speak  to  him  thou,  for  he  hears,  and  spirit  with  Spirit 

can  meet  — 

Closer  is  he  than  breathing,  and  nearer  than  hands  and 
feet." 


God  Within  Us 


For  their  sakes  I  sanctify  myself,  that  they  also 
might  be  sanctified. 

That  they  all  may  be  one ;  as  thou,  Father,  art  in 
me,  and  I  in  thee,  that  they  also  may  be  one  in  us. 
—John  17  :  iyt  21. 


God  Within  Us 


ALL  in  the  finite  that  is  good  and  true  is 
but  the  clothing,  in  an  earthly  dress,  of  in- 
finite and  unseen  things.  Thus  do  the 
heavens  declare  the  Father's  glory,  the  sun- 
light is  the  shining  of  his  countenance,  the 
music  of  the  spheres  the  utterance  of  holy 
love.  God  is  not  far  away.  The  loving 
Ruler  of  the  whole  creation  is  ever  in  its 
midst,  and  speaks,  on  every  hand,  to  hearts 
that  wait  and  listen,  and  reveals  himself  to 
eyes  that  seek  to  see  him  in  the  things  about 
us. 

The  science  of  the  Infinite  is  not  best  read 
in  books.  It  is  written  on  the  heart  and  on 
the  pages  of  our  human  life. 

Our  saintly  Quaker  poet  has  expressed  the 
fundamental  truth  of  our  religious  faith  in 
terms  of  simple  human  lore : 

"I  fain  would  see 

How  Three  are  One  and  One  is  Three." 
7* 


72     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

He  wanders  forth  in  sun  and  air,  and  as 
he  meditates,  he  feels 

"  A  presence  melted  through  his  mood, 
A  warmth,  a  light,  a  sense  of  good, 
Like  sunshine  through  a  winter  wood." 

He  walks  among  the  streets  of  busy  men, 
and  that  same  Spirit  vests  itself  in  garments 
of  our  human  life. 

"  He  saw  that  presence,  mailed  complete 
In  her  white  innocence,  pause  to  greet 
A  fallen  sister  of  the  street. 

' '  Upon  her  bosom  snowy  pure 
The  lost  one  clung,  as  if  secure 
From  inward  guilt  or  outward  lure. 

"  But  still  he  prayed,  '  Lord,  let  me  see 
How  Three  are  One  and  One  is  Three  ?  ' 

"  Then  something  whispered,  '  Dost  thou  pray 
For  what  thon  hast  ?     This  very  day 
The  Holy  Three  have  crossed  thy  way. 

"  '  Did  not  the  gifts  of  sun  and  air 
To  good  and  ill  alike  declare 
The  all -compassionate  Father's  care? 

"  '  In  the  white  soul  that  stooped  to  raise 
The  last  one  from  her  evil  ways, 
Thou  saw'st  the  Christ,  whom  angels  praise  ! 


GOD  WITHIN  US  73 


"  '  A  bodiless  Divinity, 
The  still,  small  Voice  that  spake  to  thee 
Was  the  Holy  Spirit's  mystery  ! 

"  '  Eevealed  in  love  and  sacrifice, 
The  Holiest  passed  before  thine  eyes, 
One  and  the  same,  in  threefold  guise. 

"  '  The  equal  Father  in  rain  and  sun, 
His  Christ  in  the  good  to  evil  done, 
His  voice  in  thy  soul ; — and  the  Three  are  One  ! ' 

"  And  his  heart  answered,  '  Lord,  I  see 
How  Three  are  One,  and  One  is  Three  ! '  " 

One  meaning  of  the  poet's  dream  is  this : 
the  Father  has  revealed  himself,  not  only  in 
the  morning  stars  that  sing  for  joy,  not  only 
on  the  page  of  written  Book,  but  in  the 
hearts  and  lives  of  human  children,  in  the 
beauty  and  the  sacrifice  of  human  person- 
alities. 

CUT  Deus  homo?  is  an  ancient  and  a 
deeply  argued  question.  Council  upon  coun- 
cil have  discussed  and  reasoned  on  it.  And 
yet  I  think  it  has  a  very  simple  answer  for 
the  heart  and  life.  What  is  the  meaning  of 
the  incarnation  ?  They  called  his  name 
Emmanuel,  which  is,  God  with  us,  the  revela- 
tion of  the  Father.  Men  gazed  at  Jesus' 


74     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

face  and  he  was  transfigured  before  them ; 
he  shone  as  the  sun,  his  garments  were  as 
light.  They  beheld  the  "  light  of  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  glory  of  God  in  the  face  of  Jesus 
Christ."  What  did  they  see  ?  They  saw  a 
man  possessed  by  God.  What  is  the  mean- 
ing of  it  all  for  us  ?  He  gives  us  the  answer : 
"  For  their  sakes  I  sanctify  myself,  that  they 
also  might  be  sanctified." 

The  Son  of  man  is  not  a  picture,  merely 
to  be  looked  at  by  the  sons  of  men.  He  is 
the  actual  of  all  the  holy  prophecies  in  them. 
This  is  the  answer  to  Cur  Deus  homo  f  The 
real  and  actual  relation  of  Jesus  and  his 
Father  is  the  ideal  relation  of  humanity  to 
God.  The  incarnation  has  been  treated  in 
our  dogmas  too  much  as  if  it  were  most  for 
the  sake  of  God.  It  was  an  ideal  for  men. 
The  actual  Jesus  is  the  prophetic  man. 
And  this  is  what  the  Saviour  means  when 
he  bids  men  follow  him. 

The  lives  of  men  are  marked  by  epochs 
which  are  full  of  meaning.  The  crises 
in  the  holy  life  of  Jesus  were  his  baptism  in 
Jordan,  his  temptation  in  the  desert,  his 
transfiguration  on  the  mount,  his  cross  on 


GOD  WITHIN  US  75 

Calvary  and  his  triumph  over  death.  And 
if  we  follow  them  in  their  deep  meaning  we 
shall  find  a  revelation  for  ourselves. 

The  conscious  inner  wakening  to  his  Son- 
ship  is  most  beautifully  told.  "  And,  lo,  the 
heavens  were  opened  unto  him,  and  he  saw 
the  Spirit  of  God  descending  like  a  dove, 
and  lighting  upon  him."  This  was  the  crisis 
of  self-revelation. 

Thus  in  the  life  of  those  who  follow  Jesus 
there  must  come  a  wakening  of  the  soul. 
The  experience  of  Jesus  must  be  repeated. 
He  is  the  revelation  to  his  brethren  of  their 
own  ideal  selves.  Upon  those  who  follow 
him  must  come  the  Spirit,  descending  like  a 
dove,  and  abiding  on  them.  To  them  must 
come  the  consciousness,  the  voice  of  God, 
witnessing  that  they,  in  prophecy  and  in 
ideal,  are  sons  of  their  Father.  The  incar- 
nation thus  is  something  to  be  realized  in 
man. 

The  next  way-mark  for  the  footsteps  of 
the  sons  of  men  upon  the  path  of  the  Son  of 
man  is  in  the  wilderness  of  the  temptation. 
"And  immediately  the  Spirit  driveth  him 
into  the  wilderness.  And  he  was  there  in 


76     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

the  wilderness  forty  days,  tempted  of  Satan." 
He  goes  forth  from  the  holy  scene  of  bap- 
tism and  consecration,  inspired  with  the 
completed  consciousness  of  his  divine  and 
sacred  end  in  life.  Here  he  discovers  other 
forces  working  in  the  humanity  he  bears. 

How  true  is  this  to  the  experience  of  his 
brethren  !  This  scene  is  daily  reproduced 
in  their  lives  and  it  was  for  their  sake  he 
was  submitted  to  it.  No  sooner  do  we  be- 
come self-conscious  of  our  highest  selves  than 
we  find  realization,  deeper  than  before,  of 
the  forces  that  would  drag  us  down.  The 
analogy  is  not  complete.  Immediate  and 
absolute  victory  with  Jesus  is  with  us  an 
age-long  warfare.  But  the  conflict  is  the 
same.  Thus,  without  sin,  yet  tempted  like 
as  we  are,  victorious  through  God  within, 
does  Jesus,  for  our  sake,  walk  paths  of 
discipline  and  climb  by  struggle,  that  we 
may  see,  exemplified  in  him,  the  truth  that 
we  are  seeking  to  unfold,  that  we  may  rise 
above  a  life  of  sin  only  by  the  growing 
power  of  the  Infinite  within  us,  and  by  thus 
realizing  in  ourselves  the  incarnation. 

Now  the  divine  in  Jesus  emerges  clear 


GOD  WITHIN  US  77 

and  free.  He  comes  forth  clothed  in  the 
white  robe  of  those  who  overcome.  We 
next  behold  him  on  the  mountain  height. 
"  He  was  transfigured  before  them  :  and  his 
face  did  shine  as  the  sun,  and  his  raiment 
was  white  as  the  light."  In  this  most 
beauteous  figure  we  have  poetic  utterance 
of  the  supreme  event  of  history.  The  ideal 
of  humanity  is  once  gained.  The  Son  of 
man  has  walked  among  the  sons  of  men, 
sharing  their  life  to  the  extreme  of  evil  im- 
pulse. Out  of  the  conflict  the  Son  of  man 
comes  forth  the  Son  of  God. 

Our  analogy  continues.  Let  humanity 
take  up  its  walk  with  Jesus  Christ  and 
two  results  inevitably  follow.  First,  with 
the  disciples  on  the  mount,  he  whom  they 
look  at  as  the  Son  of  man  will  be  transfigured 
to  them  and  they  will  see  in  him  the  Son  of 
God. 

But  more  than  this :  if  the  view  and  the 
contact  be  real,  the  transfiguration  of  Christ 
will  become  the  transfiguration  of  men. 
A.nd  if  you  truly  follow  Jesus,  you  will 
thus  again,  in  so  far  as  you  do  it,  experience 
the  incarnation. 


78    THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

The  path  of  Jesus  leads  us  now  to  Cal- 
vary. The  cross  reveals  the  same  deep 
truth.  The  path  of  attainment  was  the 
road  of  self-renunciation  and  self-sacrifice. 
The  daily  following  of  Jesus  is  the  way  of 
the  cross.  The  incarnation  must  again  re- 
peat itself. 

We  have  not  reached  the  end.  Thus 
does  man  come  into  the  world,  realize  a  con- 
sciousness of  his  divine  inheritance,  fight  the 
warfare  of  his  moral  life,  become  trans- 
figured if  he  walks  with  Jesus,  and  then 
the  clouds  appear,  the  shades  of  the  evening 
gather,  the  eye  grows  dim,  the  landscape 
fades  away,  the  voices  of  the  earth  are  lost. 
The  end  of  it  all  is  death.  What  an  un- 
fathomable mystery  it  is,  that  the  sunrise 
and  the  twilight  should  be  one  short  day  ! 
The  only  answer  is  the  answer  of  the  incar- 
nation. 

He  hath  brought  immortality  to  light. 
The  last  great  epoch  was  his  resurrection. 
The  life  of  Jesus  did  not  die  because  it  was 
the  life  of  God.  The  life  of  those  who  truly 
follow  him  can  never  end,  because  theirs  is 
the  life  of  God.  The  lesson  is  this  :  man 


GOD  WITHIN  US  79 

only  enters  heaven  by  and  by  as  heaven  en- 
ters him  here  and  now.  Our  immortality  is 
our  appropriation  and  the  realizing  in  our- 
selves of  the  same  incarnation. 

Let  us  gather  up  the  lessons.  Humanity 
thus  finds  in  Jesus  the  pledge,  the  revelation 
and  the  interpretation  of  its  own  sonship 
with  the  Father.  Following  after  him  it 
enters  the  struggle  of  its  spiritual  life.  Vic- 
torious through  him,  it  is  growingly  trans- 
figured and  transformed.  Living  with  him, 
being  his  life,  it,  with  his  life,  must  live  for 
evermore. 

The  incarnation  in  humanity  !  The  inter- 
pretation I  have  sought  to  give  will  be  ver- 
ified by  an  appeal  to  life,  to  history  and  to 
experience.  It  has  been  ever  so  in  partial 
and  in  varying  ways. 

The  darkness  of  our  human  life  has  ever 
been  dispelled  by  light  from  heaven  in  the 
souls  of  good  and  holy  men  and  women. 
The  message  from  the  Father's  heart  has 
come  through  human  lips,  and  the  Father's 
love  revealed  itself  in  human  lives.  As  the 
older  messages  of  Holy  Writ  have  told  us  of 
their  time,  so  in  all  time  God  has  put  on  the 


8o     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

personalities  of  men.  and  sought  to  do  his 
work  of  grace  through  them. 

Far  better  than  the  sense  of  God  in  hill 
and  vale,  in  sun  and  star,  and  all  the  beau- 
ties of  the  world  in  which  we  live,  far  better 
than  inspired  written  page  is  the  inspired 
heart  which  touches  close  our  own  in  com- 
mon paths  of  daily  life,  whose  very  garment 
carries  healing  in  its  touch. 

Yes,  God  has  touched  life  in  many  ways, 
reveals  himself  in  varied  forms ;  through 
far-off  prophets  and  apostles,  through 
tables  of  his  holy  law,  but,  in  a  nearer  way, 
through  humble  men  and  women  in  our 
very  midst. 

It  was  a  truth  the  Saviour  taught  as  he 
revealed  it.  The  Saviour  told  his  Twelve 
that  the  incarnate  Spirit  in  himself  was  not 
for  him  alone.  He  said  the  message  of  the 
Father's  and  his  lips  must  be  repeated  o'er 
by  other  human  tongues,  the  errands  of  his 
mercy  done  by  human  feet,  and  that  the 
light  of  God  to  a  dark  world  must  shine 
through  other  human  faces  than  his  own. 
I  am  the  light  of  the  world,  said  he — and  so 
are  ye.  The  Father  hath  sent  me— and  I 


GOD  WITHIN  US  81 

send  you.  The  incarnation  was  for  them  as 
well  as  for  their  Lord. 

Now  this  is  true  in  all  our  life.  Something 
of  God  we  learn  from  everything ;  something 
from  nature's  voice  and  smile;  something 
from  a  holy  Book ;  something  from  the 
spoken  truth ;  and  more  through  touch  with 
the  invisible  and  eternal  Christ. 

But  revelation  has  not  here  its  final  end. 
It  may  be  that  oftener  than  these  it  comes 
through  good  and  pure  and  holy  lives  close 
by  our  side,  in  intimacy  with  our  daily  life, 
which,  more  than  they  knew  and  more  than 
we  have  thought,  have  spoken  to  us  God's 
thoughts,  have  ministered  to  us  his  grace, 
and  showed  to  us  his  heart  and  life. 

Is  it  not  true?  The  peace  of  God  has 
come.  Did  it  not  come  by  the  quiet  touch 
of  some  calm,  human  hand  ?  The  tender- 
ness and  sympathy  of  God  have  come  to 
soothe  our  sorrows.  Was  it  not  by  the 
human  lips  of  some  loving  child  of  God  on 
earth  ?  Have  not  our  fears  been  driven  by 
the  reassuring  voice  from  some  strong, 
human  heart  ?  The  tears  of  human  sorrow 
have  been  wiped  away  by  the  Father's 


82     THE  SPIRIT  CHR1STLIKE 

hand,  but  was  it  not  the  loving  hand  of  some 
human  child  of  his  ?  Is  it  not  almost  always 
so? 

I  think  if  we  should  trace  the  better  life 
that  lived  itself  in  all  men  down  through 
these  two  thousand  years,  that  we  should 
find  men  have  not,  in  most  part,  gained  it 
by  access  without  mediation ;  but  while  all 
would  lead  to  Christ,  it  nearly  all  has  come 
by  other  men  and  women,  who,  like  him 
and  following  him,  have  been  the  mediators 
between  him  and  his  loved  brethren.  We 
all,  I  think,  are  led  to  God  by  human  hearts 
and  hands. 

"We  seldom  know  the  meaning  of  diviner 
things  and  qualities  by  any  other  means. 
We  learn  what  love  is  when  we  see  a  loving 
woman.  We  see  the  beauty  of  self-sacrifice 
in  those  who  sacrifice  themselves.  We  see 
the  truth  most  clearly  in  true  men.  And 
by  them,  if  we  will,  we  may  be  led  to 
heaven  and  to  God. 

They  tell  us  more  than  of  the  life  that  is 
and  of  the  true  lives  of  ourselves.  They 
point  and  lead  us  to  the  better  day  that  is 
to  be.  It  is  not  by  argument  of  men  that 


GOD  WITHIN  US  83 

we  believe  the  life  that  is  to  come.  It  is 
when  we  see  a  good  life  pass  beyond  our 
sight  that  we  are  lured  to  faith  in  the  eter- 
nal goodness,  and  we  feel  the  certainty  of 
heaven. 

Thus  is  the  lesson  of  the  incarnation,  in- 
effably revealed  through  Jesus  Christ,  re- 
vealed in  partial  measure  in  the  human  lives 
that  touch  us  now. 

This  then  is  the  answer  to  Cur  Deus 
homo  f  God  became  partaker  in  the  life  of 
men  that  men  might  be  partakers  in  the  life 
of  God. 


The  Spirit  Prayerful 


He  went  out  into  a  mountain  to  pray,  and  con- 
tinued all  night  in  prayer  to  God. 

And  when  it  was  day,  ...  he  came  down  .  .  . 
and  stood  in  the  plain,  .  .  .  there  went  virtue  out  of 
him,  and  healed  them  all. — Luke  6 .-  12,  zj,  17,  ip. 


The  Spirit  Prayerful 


THE  best  of  us  poor  men  and  women  are 
very  weak  and  erring,  and  we  every  day  do 
wrong  and  need  forgiveness  for  our  sins. 
Our  lives  are  filled  with  trials  and  tempta- 
tions, with  duties  and  with  deeply  laden 
cares,  and  we  are  very  thoughtless  people  if 
they  do  not  sometimes  weigh  our  spirits 
down,  and  bring  us  to  a  sense  of  deepest  need. 
We  live  in  an  environment  that  is  against 
our  higher  life,  and  most  of  us  have  evil  in 
our  hearts.  We  find  it  very  hard  not  to  be 
filled  with  selfishness  and  sin,  and  we  need 
help  to  keep  them  out.  Our  lives  are  full  of 
things  which  we  find  hard  to  understand. 
On  every  hand  are  sorrow,  want  and  woe. 
Not  only  are  we  heavy-hearted  for  our- 
selves, but  are  forced,  either  to  blind,  selfish 
lives,  or  lives  vicarious,  and  bearing  not 
alone  our  sorrows  but  the  burdens  of  our 
fellow  men.  We  not  only  see  them  suffer 
87 


88     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

but  we  have  to  do  it  when  our  human  hands 
are  weak  and  we  most  deeply  feel  our  hu- 
man helplessness.  We  cannot  say  the  words 
we  feel,  nor  can  we  give  the  strength  we 
would.  Sometimes  men  sin  against  us, 
wrong  our  motives,  judge  us  falsely  and 
bring  us  hours  of  unhappiness  they  never 
know  or  see. 

In  every  day,  on  every  hand,  if  we  are 
thoughtful  in  our  lives,  and  serious,  and  if 
our  hearts  are  tender,  our  spirits  sensitive, 
our  consciences  not  seared,  we  feel  our  weak- 
ness, sorrow  and  our  wrongs,  and  bear  the 
sorrows,  sins  and  failures  of  our  human 
brothers  till  the  burden  is  too  great  and  we 
must  seek  some  other  help.  We  cannot  live 
this  life  and  do  it  as  we  ought  without  the 
help  of  heaven  and  of  God. 

Some  aid  we  get  from  other  men  and 
women  like  ourselves.  The  warm  and  cor- 
dial clasp  of  friendship,  the  strong,  loyal 
spirit  and  the  touch  of  sympathy  or  tear  of 
sorrow  on  our  own  behalf,  help  us  each  day 
to  meet  our  duties  and  to  bear  our  ills.  But 
these  all  fail  us  sometimes.  The  friend  be- 
comes estranged  by  misconceiving,  loyalty 


THE  SPIRIT  PRAYERFUL    89 

grows  cold  and  we  look  wistfully  for  the 
compassion  of  our  brother  when  it  does  not 
come,  and  oft  are  left  to  weep  in  silence  and 
in  solitude.  Thus  often  we  may  lose  this 
help  because  it  is  withholden  by  misunder- 
standing and  by  doubt.  Sometimes  because 
men  do  not  see  our  hearts  and  needs,  we 
wait  in  vain.  Or  perhaps  they  do  not  judge 
us  by  the  eye  of  love  and  give  us  justice 
when  we  need  forgiveness. 

At  other  times  the  good  and  patient  love 
on  which  we  leaned  is  taken  from  our  midst. 
The  life  that  carried  us  upon  its  broad, 
strong  shoulders  fades  from  our  view.  The 
eyes  that  wept  with  us  are  closed  in  death 
and  we  are  called  to  mourn  for  that  which 
made  our  sorrows  bearable.  This  world,  in 
which  we  live  for  three-score  years  and  ten, 
has  many  things  to  give  us  help,  but  they 
are  almost  sure  to  fail  us  in  the  end.  Its 
many  joys  and  pleasures  do  not  last.  Our 
usage  mars  them  and  they  soon  fulfil  their 
time. 

These  are  the  thoughts  that  make  us  think 
of  heaven  and  of  God  and  thus  to  think  is  to 
induce  within  ourselves  the  spirit  prayerful. 


90    THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

As  life  becomes  more  real  and  earnest, 
thoughtful  and  sincere,  it  feels  a  need  which 
earth  and  men  cannot  supply.  It  is  as  it 
grows  stronger  that  it  knows  its  weakness, 
and  as  it  grows  better  that  it  feels  its  sins. 
And  as  the  ties  which  bind  us  to  it  closest 
are  asunder  rent,  we  realize  their  temporary 
strength,  and  look  for  something  stronger  to 
endure.  Thus  does  our  strength  make  clear 
our  weakness,  thus  does  our  growing  good- 
ness only  give  revealment  of  the  better  good- 
ness we  have  not  attained,  invite  confession, 
waken  aspiration,  lead  us  to  God  and  tell  us 
that  we  ought  to  pray. 

In  our  great  human  weakness  we  must  have 
some  help  from  heaven.  Forgiveness  for 
our  sins  must  come  from  One  who  can  for- 
give. Our  rightly-motived  hearts,  wronged 
by  our  unjust  human  judges,  must  be  viewed 
by  One  whose  eye  is  true.  The  unseen  tear 
of  sorrow  must  be  somewhere  seen  and  with 
the  passing  of  the  things  of  time,  something 
eternal  we  must  have  to  fill  our  empty  life. 
This  is  the  spirit  prayerful.  We  need,  to 
live  this  life,  to  experience  the  help  of  God, 
to  feel  we  are  his  children,  that  he  sees  our 


THE  SPIRIT  PRAYERFUL    91 

hearts  and  knows  our  burdens,  that  in  this 
blinded  world  some  eye  sees  rightly  and  can 
judge  us  true. 

"We  all  learned  once  to  pray,  and  in  the 
evening  hour,  at  our  mother's  knee,  we 
learned  to  ask  the  help  of  God  in  the 
eternal  language  of  the  heart.  It  is  the 
way  of  men,  as  they  grow  old,  to  set  aside 
their  childlike  prayers  and  try  to  be  suffi- 
cient to  themselves,  and  in  their  human 
inconsistency,  as  fast  as  their  great  needs 
are  greater,  to  rely  upon  their  own  weak 
strength.  They  then  forget  to  ask  whether 
their  hearts  were  not  much  better  then,  as 
they  gave  utterance  to  the  words  of  faith, 
than  they  are  now.  And  many  of  us  go 
on,  with  the  increasing  cares  and  needs  of 
life,  and  every  day  add  more  forgetfulness 
of  any  need  of  help,  and  after  many  years 
we  cease  to  pray  at  all. 

The  only  perfect  life  that  ever  walked  in 
human  form,  whose  heart  was  pure,  and 
who  cherished  not  one  single  evil  thought, 
whose  deeds  were  holy,  and  whom  no  man 
of  his  time  or  since  convinced  of  sin,  felt 
the  deep  need  of  heavenly  help  and  was  in 


92     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

constant  and  unceasing  prayer.  The  Son 
of  man  must  kneel  in  humble  supplication. 
The  sons  of  men  think  they  can  live  and  do 
without  any  help  from  God  at  all.  He  who 
was  strong  enough  to  bear  our  sins  and 
sorrows  felt  a  far  greater  need  of  help  than 
we  who  sorrow  and  who  sin.  He  who  was 
good  enough  to  be  the  Saviour  of  the  world 
had  need  to  say  the  prayers  which  we  so 
confidently  think  we  can  get  on  without. 

Let  us,  for  a  few  moments,  join  his  dis- 
ciples, and  with  humble  spirits  ask  him, 
"  Teach  us  to  pray." 

In  answer  he  will  tell  us  we  must  say, 
"  Our  Father."  That  means  that  we  are 
children  and  we  must  like  children  pray. 
"We  must  be  humble  and  obedient,  with  a 
childlike  faith  and  trust,  feeling  our  igno- 
rance and  our  want  of  strength. 

And  we  must  say,  "  OUR  Father,"  for 
other  men  and  women  are  his  children  too 
— the  poor  whom  we  forget,  and  the  bad 
whom  we  despise.  And  if  he  is  their  Father 
and  is  also  ours,  and  both  we  and  they  are 
thus  his  children,  they  are  our  brothers  and 
our  sisters ;  and  if  we  do  not  love  them  we 


THE  SPIRIT  PRAYERFUL    93 

are  not  fit  to  pray,  for  we  cannot  say  "  OUR 
Father."  Remember,  then,  you  cannot  pray 
unless  you  love  God's  other  children,  and  if 
you  ever  try  to  do  it,  it  can  never  find  an 
echo  in  the  heart  of  God. 

It  means  all  men.  It  means  your  friend, 
and  it  must  mean  your  enemy  as  well.  We 
shall  have  human  brotherhood,  of  which 
men  talk  to-day  so  much,  when  all  men 
kneel  together  and  together  say,  "  Our 
Father." 

"  Our  Father  which  art  in  heaven."  In 
heaven — not  some  well-meaning  but  near- 
seeing  earthly  one,  but  one  who  sees  our 
needs  more  clearly  than  we  see  them  and  who 
sometimes  must  correct  our  erring  prayers, 
and  give  us,  not  the  things  we  asked,  but 
those  for  which  we  ought  to  pray. 

"  Hallowed  be  thy  name."  Name,  in  the 
old  Semitic  speech  in  which  the  Master 
spoke,  means  character  and  will.  Rever- 
ence for  God,  translated  into  language  of 
an  earthly  life,  means  sense  of  sacredness 
for  those  things  which  are  good  and  holy. 
It  is  not  superstitious  awe.  It  is  the  simple 
love  of  goodness  and  of  truth.  It  is  the 


94    THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

lifting  of  our  souls  above  the  rude,  un- 
hallowed ways  of  men. 

"  Thy  kingdom  come.  Thy  will  be  done, 
as  in  heaven,  so  in  earth."  "We  must  want 
righteousness,  on  earth.  It  is  not  praying 
for  a  far-off  heaven  for  our  selfish  selves, 
but  wanting  to  bring  in  the  heavenly  life  to 
our  own  hearts  and  to  the  lives  of  men. 

"  Thy  will  be  done."  God  sees  and  seeks 
for  us  the  highest  good  we  cannot  see  or 
seek ;  and  if  we  ask  for  things  that  hurt  us, 
as  our  earthly  child  so  often  does  of  us,  he 
will  be  a  true  Father  and  withhold  from  us 
the  stone  we  blindly  ask,  and  give  us  bread 
instead. 

"  Give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread."  The 
highest  thought  in  this  is  the  sense  of  our 
dependence.  "We  partly  earn  these  things, 
but  they 'are  God's  gifts,  and  in  the  toil  of 
life  we  need  the  guidance  of  the  Father's 
hand. 

"  Forgive  us  our  debts,  as  we  forgive  our 
debtors."  This  is  a  double  prayer.  It  is, 
first  of  all,  confession ;  then  it  asks  for  charity 
and  love.  Think  of  its  meaning  :  "  Lord, 
treat  me  as  I  treat  my  fellow  men."  It 


THE  SPIRIT  PRAYERFUL    95 

means  that  your  sin  must  stand  unforgiven 
if  you  have  refused  your  brother's  prayer  to 
you. 

Confession  of  our  sins  is  not  salvation,  nor 
will  it  give  us  heaven.  The  life  above  us 
must  be  risen  to.  The  next  phrase  of  this 
prayer  means,  "  May  we  not  sin  to-day," 
and  better  than  the  prayer  for  daily  bread 
is  this,  "  May  we  be  good  and  true." 

This  prayer  of  Jesus  is  enough,  if  we  do 
more  than  say  it  with  our  lips.  By  it  we 
shall  remember  that  we  have  a  Father  and 
we  are  his  children.  With  its  thought  in 
our  hearts  we  shall  love  all  his  children  and 
be  good  to  them.  We  shall  both  love  and 
hallow  goodness,  and  in  all  things  try  to  do 
his  holy  will.  We  shall  receive  the  gifts  of 
life  with  grateful  hearts  and  vest  the  lowly 
toil  of  daily  life  in  sacred  meanings.  It 
will  lead  us  to  forgive  and  be  forgiven. 
And  we  shall,  if  we  say  it  in  our  hearts, 
find  ourselves  growing  better  in  our  lives. 

Now  it  is  true  that  prayer  is  an  atmos- 
phere in  which  to  live  and  is  not  bound  by 
formal  times  or  words.  Yet  most  of  us  are 
such  frail  creatures  that  we  need  somewhat 


96    THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

to  live  by  regulation  and  by  rule.  Even  the 
Son  of  man,  whose  very  thought  was  prayer, 
had  need  to  draw  apart  and  had  his  hours 
of  prayer.  It  may  be  our  need  is  as  great 
as  his. 

The  morning  hour  helps  to  start  the  day 
aright.  If  we  begin  each  day  with  grateful 
recognition  of  our  blessings  they  will  seem 
better  when  they  come.  If  we  confess  our 
past  transgression,  we  shall  be  watchful  for 
the  sin  awaiting  us.  Many  of  the  conflicts 
of  the  day  we  might  win  in  advance,  before 
the  day  begins. 

And  if  at  eventide  we  feel  commended  to 
the  care  of  God,  we  shall  be  better  men  and 
women.  I  think,  for  most  of  us,  whose 
lives  are  crossed  with  care,  and  occupied 
with  toil  throughout  the  busy  day,  we  need 
an  evening  and  a  morning  hour. 

I  ever  need  to  ask  of  Him  who  guides  our 
spirits,  that  I  may  by  Him  be  led,  and  that 


What  conscience  dictates  to  be  done, 

Or  warns  me  not  to  do, 
This,  teach  me  more  than  hell  to  sbnn, 

That,  more  than  heaven  pursue. 


THE  SPIRIT  PRAYERFUL    97 


"  What  blessings  thy  free  bounty  gives 

Let  me  not  oast  away, 
For  God  is  paid  when  man  receives  ; 
To  enjoy  is  to  obey. 

"  If  I  am  right,  thy  grace  impart 

Still  in  the  right  to  stay. 
If  I  am  wrong,  oh,  teach  my  heart 
To  find  the  better  way. 

"  Save  me  alike  from  foolish  pride, 

Or  impious  discontent, 
At  aught  thy  wisdom  has  denied, 
Or  aught  thy  goodness  lent. 

"  Teach  me  to  feel  another's  woe, 

To  hide  the  fault  I  see, 

That  mercy  I  to  others  show, 

That  mercy  show  to  me. 

"  This  day  be  bread  and  peace  my  lot ; 

All  else  beneath  the  sun, 
Thou  know'st  if  best  bestowed  or  not, 
And  let  thy  will  be  done." 

THE  SPIRIT  PRAYERFUL 

"  Shall  not  this  spirit  calm  our  hearts  and  bid  vain  con- 
flicts cease  ? 
Ay,  when  we  commune  with  our  God  in  holy  hours  of 

peace 
And  feel  that  by  the  lights  and  clouds  through  which 

our  pathway  lies, 

By  the  beauty  and  the  grief  alike  we  are  training  for 
the  skies. ' ' 


The  Life  Christlike 


And  when  it  was  day,  ...  he  came  down 
.  .  .  ,  and  stood  in  the  plain,  .  .  .  there  went  virtue 
out  of  him,  and  healed  them  all. — Luke  6:  ij,  17,  ig. 


The  Life  Christlike 


UPON  the  mountainside  the  Saviour  spent 
all  night  in  prayer  to  God. 

"  And  when  it  was  day,  .  .  .  stood  in  the 
plain,  .  .  .  and  healed  men  by  his  virtue." 

When  the  eternal  Father  of  all  men  and 
women  sought  to  reveal  his  will  and  love 
most  perfectly  to  them,  he  did  it  through  a 
human  life.  And  it  is  true  that  when  men 
bow  in  reverence  to  the  name  of  Christ,  they 
worship  and  adore  the  God  whom  he  re- 
veals. But  this  was  not  the  Father's  final 
motive  in  the  incarnation.  He  did  not  mean 
that  men  should  only  worship  and  accept  in 
faith.  The  Christ  is  more  than  a  sublime,  at- 
tractive picture  for  our  gaze  and  admiration. 
He  came,  not  only  to  reveal  his  Father,  but  to 
bring  his  Father's  life  into  the  life  of  men, 
that  they,  too,  might,  through  him,  become 
true  sons  of  God.  "We  never  can  attain  the 

101 


102     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

infinite  ideal  for  us  by  worship  and  confes- 
sion, nor  alone  by  supplication.  It  must  be 
also  by  a  way  of  living. 

The  Son  of  man  walked  this  same  earth, 
was  tempted  like  as  we  are,  bore  human  sor- 
rows and  endured  our  human  pains,  that  he 
might  teach  us  how  to  meet  temptation, 
bear  our  troubles  and  our  disappointments, 
and  yet  live  a  good  and  holy  life.  He 
showed  us  how  the  life  of  heaven  might  be 
lived  on  earth.  He  suffered  for  our  sins, 
not  only  that  we  might  receive  forgiveness, 
but  that  we  might  forbear  to  sin.  We  live 
again,  not  only  because  he  lives,  but  because 
he  lives  in  us.  We  enter  heaven  just  as  he 
did,  and  by  walking  in  his  way. 

Remember,  then,  that  not  by  our  confes- 
sion of  the  church's  faith,  or  by  our  admi- 
ration of  his  attributes,  or  by  our  saying 
Lord  and  Master,  enter  we  the  kingdom,  but 
by  the  observance  of  the  Father's  holy  will. 
It  is  not  a  matter  of  the  head,  or  of  the 
outward  attitude,  but  of  the  heart  and  spirit 
and  the  life.  A  holy  life  like  that  of  Jesus 
was  the  true  and  adequate  expression  of  the 
way,  and  we  must  more  than  worship  and 


THE  LIFE  CHRISTLIKE     103 

believe  upon  the  mount ;  yea,  we  must  fol- 
low him  upon  the  plain. 

The  entrance  to  the  way  is  by  confession. 
Kepentance  and  contrition  let  us  in.  Both 
faith  and  prayer  will  lead  us  to  the  way, 
but  they  are  not  the  way  itself. 

This  is  the  Christlike  life. 

It  is  a  life  of  righteousness.  Moral  good- 
ness is  its  end  and  goal.  By  this  we  do  not 
mean  mere  outward  life  of  rules  and  regu- 
lations, but  the  moral  goodness  of  the  inner 
heart.  Our  lights  must  shine  that  men  may 
see  our  good  works  and  by  them  glorify  our 
Father,  and  reveal  the  way.  To  love  the 
Saviour  is  to  keep  his  law  of  love.  The 
hunger  and  the  thirst  for  righteousness  is 
the  first  motive  of  the  Christlike  life.  Ex- 
cept our  righteousness  exceed  the  churchly 
righteousness  of  scribe  and  Pharisee,  we 
are  not  in  the  kingdom.  The  Christlike  life 
is  one  of  goody  plain,  common  goodness. 
We  must  not  say  the  thing  that  is  false. 
We  must  not  be  extorters  from  the  poor. 
We  must  be  just  and  honest  and  upright. 
The  aim  of  life  is  to  be  good  and  true. 

It  is  not  righteousness  in  the  stern  form 


104    THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

of  rigid  and  bare  justice.  It  pays  its  earthly- 
debts,  but  it  must  go  beyond  this ;  it  must 
pay  the  debts  of  other  men.  For  it  is  a  life 
of  love.  Though  we  have  tongues  of  men 
and  voices  of  the  angels,  if  we  have  not 
love  we  are  but  sounding  brass.  Though 
we  be  gifted  with  the  outlook  of  the  prophet, 
have  all  Christian  knowledge,  and  a  faith 
that  moves  the  hills,  we  are  as  nothing,  if 
we  have  not  love.  And  if  we  feed  the  poor 
and  do  it  not  from  loving  hearts,  it  is  no 
worthy  sacrifice.  We  may  be  martyrs  at 
the  burning  stake  of  truth,  and  if  it  be  not 
love  that  suffers,  it  availeth  nothing. 

The  Christlike  life  is  one  of  love  that  suf- 
fers long,  is  patient  with  the  sins  of  other 
men,  and  looks  upon  them  with  the  constant, 
and  unfailing,  and  uplifting  eye  of  kind- 
ness. 

Its  heart  must  never  know  the  miserable 
thought  of  envy  or  the  mean,  jealous  spirit. 
It  seeketh  not  its  own,  but  has  a  thought 
and  care  for  other  men.  It  is  not  easily 
provoked  to  wrath  and  does  not  set  itself  to 
find  out  all  the  evil  that  it  can  in  other 
men,  does  not  report  iniquity  when  found, 


THE  LIFE  CHRISTLIKE     105 

but  gives  itself  to  looking  everywhere  for 
truth  and  making  its  rejoicing  in  it.  It  is 
glad  for  every  joy  for  every  man,  and  sor- 
rows for  their  evils  and  their  wrongs.  It 
bears  all  things  in  fortitude,  believes  in  men, 
lifts  them  by  its  kindly  faith,  and  hopeth 
for  the  goodness  that  it  fails  to  see.  The 
Christlike  life  had  for  itself  a  new  com- 
mandment given,  that  we  love  one  another. 

This  brings  us  to  the  truest  and  the  wid- 
est sphere  of  the  Christlike  life.  It  is  not 
in  the  church.  It  is  a  life  with  God  in 
prayer.  It  is  a  following  of  Christ  in  faith. 
But  if  we  follow  Christ,  he  leads  us,  not 
away  from  earth  at  once  to  heaven  but  from 
heaven  to  earth,  from  the  mountain  to  the 
plain.  We  find  his  footsteps  on  the  paths 
of  men. 

He  says  to  his  disciples  that  they  must  do 
all  the  things  they  do  for  him.  But  he  has 
shown,  and  shown  them  very  simply,  how  it 
is  for  him.  He  is  hungered  and  we  must  give 
him  meat ;  is  thirsty  and  we  must  give  him 
drink ;  naked  and  we  must  clothe  him ;  sick, 
and  we  must  go  and  help  him,  with  the  touch 
of  human  sympathy  and  love.  In  every  hum- 


106     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

ble  man  and  woman  in  our  midst,  he  dwells. 
And  insomuch  as  we  neglect  to  minister  to 
them,  we  turn  our  backs  on  him.  And 
insomuch  as,  of  the  very  least  of  them,  we 
serve  the  needs,  we  honor  and  adore  and 
witness  to  our  love  for  him  and  God. 

"  Who  counts  his  brother's  welfare 

As  sacred  as  his  own, 
And  loves,  forgives,  and  pities, 
He  serveth  Me  alone." 

The  larger  realm  of  Christian  life  is  not 
the  cloistered  abbey,  nor  is  it  yet  the  shad- 
owed closet  of  our  prayers ;  it  is  our  com- 
mon, daily  life. 

The  life  of  Jesus,  much  of  it,  was  spent, 
as  I  have  told  you  in  our  other  meditations, 
as  we  must  spend  much  of  ours,  upon  the 
mountainside,  in  quiet  solitude,  with  God. 
His  was  a  life  of  prayer,  as  ours  should  be. 
But  more  of  it  was  spent  in  loving  ministra- 
tion to  the  needs  of  men  upon  the  plain. 

And  he  said  rather  more  of  this  than  of 
our  sacrifice  and  prayer.  His  sternest  and 
severest  words  were  for  religious  men  de- 
vouring widows'  houses  and  for  pretence 
praying  long. 


THE  LIFE  CHRISTLIKE     107 

His  words  were  very  strongly  put,  and 
though  they  shame  us  we  must  not  forbear 
to  hear  them.  We  must  not  show  an  angry 
spirit  to  our  brother  without  cause.  If  we 
do,  we  are  in  danger  of  the  wrath  of  God. 
The  sacrifice  upon  the  altar  must  stay  with- 
out acceptance  while  we  go  and  render  the 
forgiveness  to  our  brother,  which  we  ask 
ourselves  of  God.  And  if  that  brother  sin 
for  seven  days  against  us,  seventy  times  a 
day,  we  must  each  day  and  time  forgive  him 
if  he  ask. 

Is  evil  rendered  us,  we  must  not  render 
evil  back,  but  good.  To  recompense  we 
have  no  right.  So  earnestly  must  we  re- 
move the  beam  from  our  own  eye,  that  we 
shall  have  no  time  to  hunt  for  motes,  and 
have  no  right  to  do  so  in  our  brother's.  We 
must  give  to  those  in  need  that  ask.  And 
never  may  we  stir  up  strife,  but  ever  seek 
among  men  all  good-will  and  peace. 

To  judge  men  is  not  our  prerogative,  and 
only  he  who  has  committed  no  sin  can  cast 
the  first  stone  at  him  who  has.  If  men 
wrong  us  we  must  show  them  mercy  and  re- 
pay their  wrong  with  love. 


io8     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

The  Christlike  life  is  one  that  loves  its 
neighbors,  but  it  cannot  hate  its  foes  ;  must 
love  its  enemies,  bless  those  who  curse  it,  do 
good  to  those  who  hate  it,  and  must  pray 
that  good  may  come  to  those  who  do  it  any 
wrong. 

We  must  love  the  Lord  our  God,  and  we 
must  love  our  neighbor  just  as  truly  as  we 
love  ourselves.  In  everything  we  must  do 
to  others  the  things  we  would  have  others 
do  to  us. 

"  To  worship  rightly  is  to  love  each  other  : 
Each  smile  a  hymn,  each  kindly  deed  a  prayer." 

"  Each  loving  life  a  psalm  of  gratitude." 

This  is  not  all.  "We  must  remember  that 
the  Christlike  life  ever  goes  deeper  than  the 
outward  act.  We  must  do  alms,  but  we 
must  never  do  them  for  the  sake  of  praise. 
We  must  not  give,  nor  ever  do  our  good, 
because  it  makes  us  feel  contented  with  our- 
selves. We  may  heap  coals  of  fire  on  our 
adversary's  head,  but  we  must  never  do  it 
simply  that  he  should  be  shamed  by  it.  We 
must  not  only  keep  from  evil  deeds,  but  do 


THE  LIFE  CHRISTLIKE     109 

so  by  the  banishment  of  sinful  thoughts. 
Our  motives  must  be  pure. 

This  is  a  very  deep  and  searching  thought. 
If  we  are  honest  men  because  we  love  to 
hear  men  call  us  honest,  then  we  are  dishon- 
est men.  "We  must  be  more  than  whited 
sepulchers.  Our  good  works,  if  we  do  them 
to  be  seen  of  men,  are  no  longer  works  of 
good.  If  we  think  hatred  it  is  as  bad  as  if 
we  killed.  "We  must  not  only  lead  chaste 
lives  and  pure,  but  cease  to  wish  for  things 
unholy  and  impure. 

Some  men  find  their  religion,  so  it  seems, 
in  fasts  and  prayers,  in  their  confessions  and 
their  faiths.  Some  others  say  they  find  it, 
not  in  these  things,  but  in  righteousness  of 
life.  There  is  no  argument  between  the 
two.  If  in  real  truth  we  do  the  one,  we 
must  do  the  other. 

The  heart  that  comes  from  a  true  prayer, 
an  earnest  worship  in  the  sacred  place,  will 
find  itself  led  on  to  a  better  and  a  truer  life. 
Likewise  he  who  really  sees  the  greatness 
and  the  depth  of  the  Christlike  life,  which 
must  love  its  foes  as  well  as  its  friends,  must 
love  other  men  as  well  as  itself,  must  do  good 


no     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

deeds  from  a  pure  heart,  can  never  have  the 
self-sufficiency  that  makes  him  think  he  can 
get  on  and  gain  it  without  God  and  prayer. 
The  spirit  prayerful  and  the  Christlike  life 
are  one.  The  one  is  the  condition  of  the 
other. 

"  He  only  feels  his  burdens  fall 
Who,  taught  by  suffering,  pities  all." 

First,  you  must  pray  or  you  will  not  have 
strength  to  do  the  good  you  ought.  Then, 
you  must  try  to  do  the  good  you  ought,  that 
God  may  hear  your  prayer.  For  his  holy 
justice  tells  him  he  must  do  to  you  as  you 
do  to  other  men.  You  have  refused  forgive- 
ness to  your  brother  for  his  one  hundred 
pence,  and  now  you  pray  for  the  remittance 
of  ten  thousand  talents.  In  true  justice  God 
refuses.  It  is  a  loving  justice,  for  by  it  he 
seeks  to  make  you  better  and  more  loving. 

There  is  a  heaven  beyond.  But  we  find 
the  road  and  access  to  it  not  by  pushing  by, 
but  by  passing  through,  the  human  lives 
about  us  and  between  us  and  our  goal. 
There  is  the  Christ  and  the  Christlike  life. 
He  puts  his  every  brother  between  himself 


THE  LIFE  CHRISTLIKE     ill 

and  you,  and  your  way  lies  through  the  hu- 
man hearts  and  lives — the  sympathies,  and 
needs,  and  sorrows,  and  joys  of  all  your 
brothers  and  your  sisters.  They  are  the 
mediators  of  your  prayers.  They  speak  to 
God  against  you  or  on  your  behalf.  The 
real  gifts  you  render  to  your  God  and  Christ 
are  the  things  you  give  to  them. 

"  What  doth  that  holy  Guide  require  ? 
No  rite  of  pain,  nor  gift  of  blood, 
But  man  a  kindly  brotherhood, 
Looking,  where  duty  is  desire, 
To  him,  the  beautiful  and  good." 

"The  law  of  Hatred  disappear, 
The  law  of  Love  alone  remain." 

The  way  of  faith  is  the  path  of  love.  The 
offering  acceptable  is  a  good  heart.  The 
Christian  life  is  the  life  like  Christ's. 

"  He  went  out  into  a  mountain  to  pray, 
and  continued  all  night  in  prayer  to  God." 

"  And  when  it  was  day  ...  he  came  down, 
.  .  .  and  stood  in  the  plain,  .  .  .  there  went 
virtue  out  of  him,  and  healed  them  all." 

The  life  Christlike  needs  the  spirit  prayer- 
ful ;  and  the  spirit  prayerful  must  become 
the  life  Christlike. 


Surrender  and  Sacrifice 


For  whosoever  will  save  his  life  shall  lose  it :  and 
whosoever  will  lose  his  life  for  my  sake  shall  find 
it. — Matt.  16:25. 

Bear  ye  one  another's  burdens,  and  so  fulfil  the 
law  of  Christ. — Gal.  6 : 2. 


Surrender  and  Sacrifice 


WE  have  been  trying  in  these  medita- 
tions, and  in  a  very  simple,  humble  way,  to 
see  the  Christlike  life,  know  what  it  is,  and 
make  it  deeper  in  ourselves.  By  quiet 
hours  of  self-contemplation,  by  simple- 
hearted  prayer,  and  through  the  thoughtful 
nurture  of  the  inner  life,  we  were  to  gain, 
from  day  to  day,  a  good  and  growing 
spiritual  life.  Thus  we  may  acquire  a 
character  within  ourselves  which  seeks  a 
goal  of  righteousness,  and  looks  up  to  the 
Father  with  a  heart  of  faith,  and  on  our 
brothers  with  the  eye  of  love.  This  life 
is  to  be  won  by  taking  Christ  and  his  life 
as  our  pattern,  and  by  following  him,  not 
by  an  outward  conformation  only,  but  with 
the  deeper  motive  of  the  inward  heart. 

If  we  will  seek  the  ground  and  ultimate 
of  Jesus'  good  and  holy  life,  it  will  be  in 
the  perfect  and  complete  surrender  of  his 
"5 


ii6     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

will  and  life  to  God.  It  was  as  Jesus  said : 
I  do  not  mine  own  will,  but  his  that  sent 
me.  The  words  that  I  speak  are  not  mine, 
but  what  he  teacheth  me  to  speak.  To  one 
who  was  a  master  and  a  teacher  in  the 
house  of  Israel,  who  came  by  night  to 
learn  from  One  who  was  a  teacher  come 
from  God,  he  said:  Ye  must  again,  and 
from  above,  be  born.  That  is,  ye  must  have 
in  you  life  from  God.  Your  life  must  be 
his  Spirit.  It  must  be  in  you,  a  well  of 
water  springing  up  unto  eternal  life. 

My  very  meat  and  drink,  he  said,  is  doing 
the  will  of  him  that  sent  me.  The  Son  does 
nothing  of  himself,  but  what  he  sees  the 
Father  do.  I  can,  of  mine  own  self,  do 
nothing.  My  doctrine  is  not  mine,  but  his 
that  sent  me,  and  I  speak  those  things 
which  I  have  heard  of  him.  I  always  do 
the  things  that  please  him  and  I  seek  not 
mine  own  glory.  As  the  Father  gave  to 
me  commandment,  so  I  do. 

The  life  of  Jesus  was  surrender  to  the 
will  of  God. 

The  very  heart  of  sin  is  selfishness. 
It  is  our  will  against  God's.  The  very 


SURRENDER  AND  SACRIFICE  117 

heart  of  righteousness  is  giving  up  of 
self.  And  if  it  were  essential  that  the  Son 
of  man  should  yield  himself,  shall  the  serv- 
ant be  greater  than  his  Lord,  and  shall  we 
think  that  our  own  wills  and  selves  are 
right  ? 

When  Jesus  said  they  must  do  this,  they 
took  up  stones  and  cast  at  him.  That  they 
should  bend  themselves,  give  up  their  inclina- 
tions, forget  their  own  glory,  and  thus  make 
their  wills  another's,  was  too  hard  a  saying 
for  them. 

It  is  a  truth  that  is  hard  for  men  to-day, 
— the  bending  of  our  wills  to  God.  We 
want  the  things  of  life  to  be  our  way. 
We  feel  that  we  know  best  the  things  we 
ought  to  have,  and  every  day  act  towards 
our  heavenly  Father  just  as  our  own  un- 
ruly, wilful  children  act  towards  us. 

Two  requisites  are  necessary  for  a  happy 
home — a  father  strong  and  loving,  and  a 
willing  child.  A  good,  strong  will,  that 
wills  in  love  what  is  best,  and  the  child 
who  trusts  his  father.  We  see  the  need  of 
this  in  our  own  homes.  How  many  times 
they  want  and  ask  the  thing  that  will  not 


1 18     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

do  them  good !  How  needful  that  they 
should  surrender  to  a  wiser  and  a  better 
judgment!  They  sometimes  think  we  are 
unloving  and  unjust.  Just  as  they  are  to 
us,  so  we  are  to  our  Father.  We  oft  and 
again  forget  that  he  is  wisdom,  that  he  sees 
the  ends  of  things,  while  we  are  unwise, 
short  of  sight  and  only  see  the  present 
moment. 

As  Jesus  prayed,  so  must  we  pray,  Thy 
will  be  done,  not  mine.  Our  weakness  must 
surrender  to  God's  strength.  Our  igno- 
rance to  his  wisdom  must  defer.  Our  erring 
steps  must  be  guided  by  his  loving  hand. 
He  knows  what  is  the  best  for  us.  He 
needs  sometimes  to  let  us  suffer,  that  we 
shall  not  fail  again  ;  at  other  times  that  we 
may  have  compassion  in  our  hearts  and  feel 
the  sympathy  which  is  so  beautiful  an 
element  in  character.  He  knows  our  very 
hearts  far  better  than  we  do  ourselves.  He 
leads  us  better  than  we  lead  ourselves.  Just 
as  an  earthly  child  grows  best  who  does  the 
earthly  parent's  will,  so  we  shall  do,  for  we 
are  children.  It  is  the  only  way  to  learn 
the  truth.  He  only  can  reveal  himself  to 


SURRENDER  AND  SACRIFICE  1 19 

such  as  do  his  will.  Yes,  we  are  children. 
God  is  our  Father.  We  shall  do  best  to  let 
him  guide  his  household.  We  must  give  up 
to  God. 

One  thing  we  must  make  clear.  He 
will  not  force  us.  He  lets  us,  if  we  will,  go 
our  own  ways,  frustrate  his  plans,  undo  his 
work,  renounce  his  rule,  be  our  own  teach- 
ers, and  get  on  without  him.  He  is  no  irate 
monarch  wanting  slaves  to  trample  beneath 
his  feet.  It  is  children  that  he  wants,  to 
trust  his  goodness.  And  he  would  have  us 
yield  our  wills  to  his,  not  for  the  glory  of 
his  power,  but  that  he  may  do  us  good 
and  lead  us  right.  He  wants  our  love  and 
trust. 

If  this  become  our  spirit,  we  shall  know 
how  to  be  abased  without  depression,  to 
abound  without  self-glory,  and  both  joy 
and  sorrow  shall  unite  to  make  us  better. 
Our  weary  hours  will  be  refreshed.  We 
shall  forget  our  foes  and  only  see  our 
friends.  When  men  shall  fail  we  shall  not 
fall.  And  we  shall  seek,  not  men  to  help 
us,  but  men  that  we  may  help.  Our 
humble  ignorance  will  gain  us  knowledge, 


120     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

our  faith  grow  into  sight,  our  weakness 
shall  become  our  strength,  and  the  forgiven 
sin  shall  be  our  righteousness.  Without 
this  humble  spirit,  in  no  age,  among  no 
men,  was  ever  truth  proclaimed,  or  deed 
of  heroism  done,  or  wrong  righted,  and  no 
saviours  would  the  world  have  had. 

With  all  of  us,  sometimes,  the  gloom  en- 
circles, and  the  night  is  dark.  The  distant 
scene  we  cannot  see.  One  step  must  be 
enough,  and  we  must  pray  the  kindly  light, 
"  Lead  on."  To  choose  and  see  the  path 
we  may  desire,  but  cannot,  and  must  pray, 
"  Lead  on, 

"O'er  moor  and  fen,  o'er  crag  and  torrent,  till 
The  night  is  gone." 

The  kindly  light  is  but  the  glimmer  that 
suggests  the  coming  day,  and  with  the  morn 
the  goodness  we  have  loved  and  lost  awhile 
shall  live  again. 

What  other  can  we  do  ?  Suppose  the 
light  be  dim,  and  sometimes  for  a  moment 
almost  altogether  lost.  It  is  the  only  light 
there  is,  and  if  we  do  not  follow  it,  we  walk 
in  an  unglimmered  darkness.  In  this  some- 


SURRENDER  AND  SACRIFICE  121 

times  perplexing  world,  we  must  do  all  we 
can,  and  trust  in  God. 

One  further  and  last  thought  I  seek  to 
bring  you.  It  is  the  most  appropriate  of 
all.  God,  in  his  character  and  will,  identi- 
fies himself  with  Christ.  So  then  the  giving 
up  of  self  to  God  is  giving  up  to  Christ. 
The  Son  of  man,  in  one  most  deeply  search- 
ing utterance,  identified  himself  with  all  the 
sons  of  men.  If  these  be  truths,  surrender 
of  oneself  to  God  is  sacrifice  of  self  for 
men. 

If  we  look  down  the  paths  of  history  and 
pick  out  men  revered  and  loved,  they  will 
be  only  those  who  left  the  path  of  plain  and 
common,  rigid  duty,  and  went  out  beyond 
themselves  and  all  the  strict  requirements 
of  naked  justice.  They  will  not  be  those  men 
who  always  sought  to  do  the  just  enough, 
but  those  who  did  both  that  and  more. 
Nor  will  they  be  the  anchorites  who  only 
say  their  prayers  in  isolation  from  the  life 
of  men.  There  is  no  grandeur,  nor  is  there 
any  beauty,  in  the  calculating  conscience 
that  seeks  to  do  the  thing  required.  The 
heroes  that  have  sanctified  the  human  record 


122     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

are  not  men  of  muttered  prayers,  nor  are 
they  men  of  cautious,  careful  righteousness. 
The  gospel  is  more  than  this  kind  of  moral 
goodness.  It  finds  its  full  expression,  not 
in  the  stony  decalogue,  but  in  the  cross  on 
Calvary. 

The  goodness  that  remains  at  home  is  only 
seeming  such.  The  gospel  teaches  that  we 
must  do  all  we  can,  and  then  we  must  do 
more.  Its  spirit  does  not  ask,  What  is  my 
share  ?  How  many  times  shall  I  forgive  ? 
Just  how  much  do  I  owe  ? 

If  this  were  right,  it  is  not  possible.  How 
much  we  owe  we  cannot  tell.  The  wrongs 
that  we  incite  and  ought  to  pay  for,  we 
cannot  compute.  And  how  much  less  can 
we  make  balances,  if  it  be  true  that  we  are 
held  for  all  the  wrongs  we  might  prevent ; 
if  it  be  that  we  must  repay  not  only  all  the 
suffering  we  have  caused,  but  all  that  we 
might  have  relieved ! 

There  is  no  self-salvation.  Kenouncement 
is  the  holy  law  of  acquisition.  The  finest, 
and  the  final,  and  the  only  form  of  goodness 
is  the  sacrifice  of  self.  The  giving  that  costs 
nothing  is  no  gift.  He  who  gives  what  he 


SURRENDER  AND  SACRIFICE  123 

can  afford,  and  adds  no  more,  may  square 
his  obligation,  but  he  gains  no  grace. 

These  things  are  not  two  contradictions ; — 
our  self-culture  and  the  sacrifice  of  self.  The 
last  is  not  destructive  of  the  first,  and  must 
not  be  so  used.  We  cannot  give  unless  we 
gain.  "We  must  acquire  that  we  may  im- 
part. But  unless  we  impart  we  soon  shall 
cease  to  gain.  He  who  is  careful  of  his  gifts, 
and  satisfies  himself  with  little  giving,  will 
dwarf  his  soul  and  soon  be  satisfied  with 
very  little  goodness  in  himself. 

It  is  a  mean  and  miserable  spirit  that 
avers,  "  I  will  look  after  my  own  obligations. 
If  men  are  suffering  it  is  by  their  own  fault, 
not  mine.  I  do  my  share;  I  cannot  pay 
their  bills."  If  God  should  treat  us  as  we 
treat  our  fellows,  in  pure  justice  and  re- 
fusing grace,  we  should  be  lost. 

No,  we  are  born  into  a  world  whose  very 
law  is  sacrifice.  Motherhood  begins  it  and 
continues  to  the  end.  It  is  the  very  law  of 
life.  The  very  cosmic  processes  proclaim  it. 
Not  one  thing  lives  except  by  help  of  some- 
thing else.  In  nature,  in  our  human  life, 
and  in  the  realm  of  spirit,  refusal  to  coop- 


124    THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

erate,  exchange  and  give,  is  everywhere  de- 
cay and  death. 

There  never  was  a  self-made  man.  All 
that  we  have  we  owe  to  some  one  else,  and 
finally  to  God  our  Father.  When  shall  our 
obligation  cease  and  when  the  book  be 
closed  ?  When  we  have  ceased  to  sin  and 
have  atoned  for  all  the  wrongs  we  ever  did. 

He  who  would  follow  Christ  must  with 
him  bear  a  cross.  He  must  not  only  live  his 
life  upright  and  strong,  but  help  his  fellow 
men  to  live  and  be  their  strength ;  he  must 
with  brave  heart  bear  his  own  sorrows,  but 
only  by  the  bearing  of  another's  burdens 
can  he  fulfil  the  law  of  Christ.  The  path  is 
that  of  Jesus  and  the  way  of  Jesus  is  the 
way  of  the  cross.  We  keep  our  lives  by 
giving  them  to  God  and  Christ  and  men. 


The  Ministry  of  Suffering 


Perfect  through  sufferings. — Heb.  2 :  zo* 


The  Ministry  of  Suffering 


"  PERFECT  through  sufferings." 
Thus  spake  a  sufferer  of  one  who  suffered. 
For  the  writer  of  these  words  was  one  who 
sat  at  the  great  apostle's  feet,  had  shared 
his  life,  and  gives  the  echo  of  his  thought. 
The  life  of  that  apostle,  like  that  of  Him 
whose  noble  slave  he  was,  was  full  of  suffer- 
ing and  care.  He  was  a  man  whose  days 
were  full  of  "  weariness  and  painfulness," 
"  in  watchings  often,"  in  hunger,  thirst  and 
fastings,  stripes  and  prisons  and  in  deaths 
and  dyings  oft,  and  who  in  his  body  bore 
the  marks  of  Jesus  Christ;  one  who  had 
nought  to  glory  in  but  tribulation,  and  who 
could  say,  "I  have  been  crucified  with 
Christ."  It  was  not  out  of  theoretic,  theo- 
logic  formula,  but  out  of  deep  experience 
that  the  great  apostle  to  the  suffering  Gen- 
tiles preached,  above  all  things,  the  cross  of 
Christ. 

127 


128     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

Our  simple  human  thought,  moved  by  its 
finer  feelings,  has  ever  felt  the  sacrifice  and 
suffering  of  Jesus  to  give  the  finer  beauty 
and  the  deeper  meaning  to  his  holy  life, 
and  it  is  only  when  those  feelings  are  taken 
from  their  sacred  place  and  lost  amid  the 
dogmas  of  the  mind,  that  they  are  made 
misleading. 

More  than  the  Saviour's  priceless  words 
of  truth,  more  than  his  character  of  perfect 
beauty,  Gethsemane  and  Cavalry  have  ever 
touched  the  hearts  and  purified  the  lives  of 
men. 

The  argument  of  the  epistle  is  in  the  form 
of  an  analogy.  Christ  is  the  interpretation 
of  humanity.  There  is  essential  likeness 
between  his  followers  and  himself.  What 
he  did  they  must  try  to  do,  and  his  expe- 
rience must  be  their  experience,  too.  If  they 
would  live  with  him  they  must  be  dead  with 
him.  If  with  him  they  would  reign,  they 
must  with  him  suffer.  As  he  was  perfected 
by  sufferings,  so  they  must  be  perfected. 

Of  much  of  our  suffering  we  can  see 
the  meaning.  It  is  the  consequence  of  our 
own  wilfulness,  and  we  are  conscious  that 


MINISTRY  OF  SUFFERING    129 

we  merit  it.  All  this  is  but  the  needful 
chastening  of  a  good  and  loving  Father, 
and  it  is  not  hard  to  understand  it  and  ap- 
prove. 

But  after  this  a  larger  residue  of  pain  and 
sorrow  yet  remains  in  almost  every  life, 
which  we  are  called  to  reconcile  with  our 
conception  of  a  loving  God  and  Father.  The 
answer  of  the  heavy,  questioning  heart  is 
not  immediate  or  simple.  Now  and  again 
our  hearts  beat  with  the  ancient  sage  of 
Tennyson : 

"The  world  is  dark  with  griefs  and  graves, 
So  dark  that  meii  cry  out  against  the  heavens." 

Whoever  has  not  thought  of  it,  bewildered, 
and  in  temporary  darkness  and  despair,  has 
never  suffered,  or  he  does  not  think. 

The  oldest  argument  was  that  the  gods 
were  angry.  Men  get  what  they  deserve. 
It  is  no  answer.  The  comforters  of  Job 
gave  him  no  satisfaction  and  they  give  none 
to  us.  It  is  not  true  that  good  men  do  not 
suffer  and  that  only  bad  men  do.  It  may 
be  truer  that  more  suffering  comes  to  good 
men,  with  their  finer  spirits,  than  to  bad, 


130    THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

and  with  the  Psalmist  we  are  baffled  when 
the  wicked  flourish  as  the  bay-tree  and 
God's  children  suffer  their  injustice  and 
their  hate.  To  say  that  human  suffering  is 
the  issue  of  our  individual  sin  and  is  our 
rightful  retribution  violates  our  conscious- 
ness and  does  not  meet  the  simple  facts  of 
life. 

Modern  philosophy  has  sought  to  make  it 
clear  by  showing  us  that  it  is  an  inevitable 
contrast.  Our  consciousness,  said  Mr. 
Fiske,  is  variation  and  incessant  change. 
If  human  palates  knew  naught  else  but 
sweetness,  then  nothing  would  be  sweet. 
Nothing  is  seen  or  known  or  felt,  except  by 
contrast  with  its  opposite.  The  physiolo- 
gist will  tell  us  that  without  a  nervous  sys- 
tem susceptible  and  capable  of  pain,  no 
pleasure  would  be  possible.  The  ultimate 
of  this  explaining  is  that  our  suffering  is 
needful  to  our  contrasting  joy,  and  thus  a 
happy  world  must  be  a  world  where  happi- 
ness exists  against  its  necessary  background 
of  suffering  and  pain. 

This  argument  seems  true.  "We  see  that 
there  can  be  no  this  without  a  that,  no  here 


MINISTRY  OF  SUFFERING    131 

without  a  there,  that  all  things  are,  and 
only  can  be,  known  by  their  contrasts. 

But  who  will  say  that  the  answer  of  philos- 
opher and  scientist  gives  final  satisfaction 
to  the  moral  and  the  spiritual  longings  of 
an  aching  human  heart  ? 

We  must  go  deeper  into  our  subject.  The 
dark  and  haunting  doubt  is  not  dispelled. 
God  is  our  Father,  we  his  children.  But 
will  a  Father  let  his  children  suffer  if  the 
power  of  the  universe  is  his,  and  he  can 
help  it  ? 

We  must  believe  God  cares  for  these 
things,  knows  our  sorrows  and  our  pains, 
and  is  not  indifferent  when  we  mourn  and 
suffer.  Another  thing,  though,  we  must  not 
forget :  that  most  of  all  he  wants  his  chil- 
dren to  be  good  and  loving,  to  have  tender 
sympathies  and  gentle  hearts.  He  wants 
them  to  be  like  himself. 

He  wants  us  to  be  like  himself.  Have 
you  ever  thought  of  that  ?  The  painters  of 
the  old-world  ages  left  us  pictures  which 
portray  the  bleeding  heart  of  Christ.  They 
oftentimes  repel  us  as  depicting  scenes  too 
sacred  for  the  eye.  But  they  convey  a  truth. 


132     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

Gethsemane  and  Calvary  do  tell  to  us  the 
story  of  the  suffering  heart  of  God.  God 
suffers !  Have  you  ever  thought  of  that  ? 
For  if  it  be  not  true,  he  is  no  Father. 

The  heavenly  fatherhood  is  not  impaired 
if  it  be  true  that  pain  and  sorrow  make  us 
better  men  and  women.  And  do  they  not  ? 
The  writer  of  our  text  has  given  us  our  an- 
swer. "We  are  perfected  through  our  suf- 
fering. 

One  truth  is  clear  to  all  who  deeply  think 
on  human  life.  It  is  that  human  hearts  and 
lives  are  moved,  not  by  ideas  alone,  but  by 
experience.  The  ultimate  of  human  char- 
acter lies  in  its  deepest  feelings.  We  can- 
not state  or  teach  the  qualities  of  love,  of 
sacrifice,  of  patience,  tenderness  and  sym- 
pathy in  propositions  of  the  mind.  They 
must  be  felt. 

The  satisfaction  of  our  answer  to  the  mys- 
tery before  us  will  depend  upon  our  final 
view  of  life.  If  life's  purpose  should  be 
viewed  as  the  avoidance  of  all  pain  and  the 
everlasting  quest  for  that  which  men  call 
pleasure,  then  there  is  no  ministry  of  sor- 
row. But  if  life  has  its  spiritual  ends  and 


MINISTRY  OF  SUFFERING    133 

aims  there  is.  If  we  shall  say,  "  For  me  to 
live  is — pleasure,"  we  shall  see  no  good  in 
pain.  But  if  we  say,  "  For  to  me  to  live  is 
Christ,"  our  view  will  change. 

The  Psalmist  tells  us  how  he  once  saw 
through  the  clouds  and  mystery  and  viewed 
the  truth.  It  was,  he  said,  "  too  painful  for 
me  ;  until  I  went  into  the  sanctuary  of  God  ; 
then  understood  I."  Into  the  sanctuary  of 
God.  Here  only  do  we  see  things  aright. 
The  only  final  answer  to  life's  deepest  ques- 
tions is  the  answer  of  religion. 

All  those  attractive  pages  of  biography 
and  history  on  which  we  linger,  tell  of  en- 
durance, courage,  patience,  charity  and  love. 
The  story  of  the  saints  is  the  history  of 
suffering.  Nothing  ever  has  been  gained 
without  it.  It  is  the  very  story  of  develop- 
ment. Truth  has  been  won,  but  never  ex- 
cept by  it.  There  never  was  a  holy  life 
without  it  and  every  saviour  of  the  world 
since  Christ  has  gone  to  Calvary  with  him. 

But  we  need  not  go  outside  our  own 
small  lives.  "Would  any  of  us  banish  tender 
sympathy  and  sacrificing  love  from  moral 
life?  Would  we  have  hearts  that  would 


134    THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

not  vibrate  with  compassion?  Would  we 
live  in  a  world  where  love  was  all  un- 
known ?  And  is  there  any  love  but  sacri- 
fice ?  And  is  there  any  sacrifice  that  does 
not  suffer?  Where  is  the  mother  who 
would  yield  the  holy  privilege  of  suffering 
for  the  child  ?  If  there  be  such  she  is  no 
mother. 

I  do  not  think  we  ever  love  until  we 
suffer.  It  is  the  price  we  pay  for  love. 
And  if  we  love  we  pay  that  price. 

This  is  the  ministry  of  suffering.  It  is 
the  sole  condition  of  everything  that  is 
good.  Without  it  one  can  never  be  the 
mother  or  the  father,  the  husband  or  the 
wife,  the  lover  or  the  friend.  It  is  the 
very  cost  of  womanhood  and  manhood. 
And  we  are  brought  thus  to  a  paradox 
which  is  the  very  heart  of  truth :  our  suf- 
fering is  the  highest  and  the  best  of  all  our 
pleasures  and  our  joys.  It  is  the  finding  of 
our  life  by  losing  it. 

This  tells  us  how  we  ought  to  meet  it. 
Is  it  the  wrestling  with  a  religious  doubt  ? 
An  easy  way  is  to  give  up  and  take  a  creed 
or  church,  and  cease  to  think  because  it  is 


MINISTRY  OF  SUFFERING    135 

so  painful.  There  is  another  way.  It  is  to 
meet  it  bravely  and  be  made  stronger  by 
our  wrestling. 

Ignoble  souls  will  seek  to  hide  from  it. 
The  worst  of  human  sins  is  the  drowning 
of  our  sorrows.  The  truly  noble  soul  will 
not  forget  its  grief,  and  its  true  prayer  will 
be,  not  that  it  should  be  taken  from  our 
lives,  but  that  we  may  let  it  do  its  work  of 
grace  and  beauty. 

When  all  is  said,  it  is  true  that  we  have 
yet  a  mystery.  "We  all  are  very  like  our 
children.  They  cannot  understand  our 
ways  with  them.  And  least  of  all  can  they 
see  why  we  let  them  suffer  for  the  things 
they  want  and  think  they  ought  to  have. 

Thus  are  the  ways  of  God  with  us.     Yes, 

"The  world  is  dark  with  griefs  and  graves, 
So  dark  that  men  cry  out  against  the  heavens." 

But 

"  Who  knows  but  that  the  darkness  is  in  man  ? 
The  doors  of  night  may  be  the  gates  of  Light." 

Some  light  there  is,  perhaps,  at  least,  enough. 
I  have  not  sought  to  answer  philosophic 


136     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

doubt.  I  have  only  tried  to  give  the  answer 
of  religion.  I  believe  there  is  no  other  to 
life's  deepest  questions. 

"When  I  thought  to  know  this,  it  was 
too  painful  for  me ;  until  I  went  into  the 
sanctuary  of  God;  then  understood  I." 
And  the  truest  sanctuary  of  God  is  the  ex- 
perience of  the  soul.  It  is  the  only  oracle 
we  have. 

"  Perfect  through  sufferings."  Is  it  not 
surely  true  of  men  and  women  whom  we 
know  ?  Does  it  not  soften  human  hearts 
and  make  more  beautiful  our  human  lives  ? 

The  deepest  lesson,  perhaps,  we  have  yet 
to  see.  Is  it  not  true  of  all  of  us,  the  best 
of  us,  that  in  the  common  course  of  life, 
when  all  goes  smooth  and  well,  our  lives 
uninterrupted  by  disaster,  disappointment 
and  discomfort,  we  are  wont  to  fall  into 
neglect  of  God  and  spiritual  things  ?  Are 
not  our  sorrows  things  that  make  us  hum- 
ble, prayerful,  thoughtful?  The  ministry 
of  sorrow  is  thus  to  deepen  joy,  to  touch 
the  elements  in  us  that  are  the  finest,  to 
strengthen  us  by  conflict  and  lead  us  nearer 
God.  Then  it  is  no  unmeaning  thing  to  say 


MINISTRY  OF  SUFFERING    137 

that  the  house  of  mourning  may  be  better 
than  the  place  of  feasting.  Thus  may  we 
pray  that  God  will  make  us  glad  according 
to  the  days  of  our  affliction,  and  the  light 
affliction  for  a  moment  will  work  for  us 
eternal  weight  in  glory  as  we  come  to  be 
perfected  by  our  suffering. 

Thus  far  we  think  of  our  own  personal 
suffering  and  the  bearing  of  it.  Let  us 
think  once  again  upon  our  text.  It  has 
another  truth.  The  suffering  of  Jesus,  by 
which  he  was  perfected,  was  not  only  of 
his  own  deep  griefs,  not  for  himself  alone, 
but  for  his  brethren  and  for  us.  When 
some  of  his  disciples  turned  their  backs  on 
him,  it  was  for  them  he  sorrowed  most,  not 
for  himself.  It  was  far  deeper ;  and  reason- 
ing from  this  the  writer  of  our  text  goes  on 
to  say  that  Jesus  was  made  thus  like  his 
brethren,  that  his  brethren  should  be  made 
like  unto  him.  The  culture  of  the  cross  is 
gained,  the  lesson  of  the  school  of  Cavalry 
is  learned,  the  law  of  Jesus  is  fulfilled,  not 
when  we  see  the  beauty  of  his  sacrifice  and 
learn  by  it  to  bear  our  own  sorrows  patiently. 
Not  by  the  bearing  of  our  own,  but  of  one 


138     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

another's  burdens  do  we  fulfil  the  law  of 
Christ.  Have  you  ever  tried  to  do  it  when 
it  did  not  make  you  better  men  and  women  ? 

The  philosopher  may  raise  unanswerable 
doubts,  the  praying  saint  may  not  be  able 
to  explain  away  the  mysteries.  But  some 
things  we  may  see  and  know  and  feel : 
that  suffering  ever  is  the  way  of  holiness, 
the  purifier  of  our  hearts ;  that  rooms  with 
beds  of  pain  are  often  sanctuaries ;  that  the 
weakened  hands  which  we  seek  to  uplift, 
are  more  uplifting  us,  and  that  "  our  sweet- 
est songs  are  those  which  tell  of  saddest 
thought." 

Yes,  some  things  we  may  know:  that 
sorrow  drives  the  thoughts  of  evil  from  our 
spirits,  deepens  our  divinest  loves,  makes 
kinder  all  our  hearts,  and  makes  us  better, 
holier  men  and  women ;  that  the  ministry  of 
suffering  is  the  perfection  of  our  spirits,  and 
is  thus  a  thing  of  beauty  which  is  an  eternal 

joy- 


The  Life  Immortal 

(An  Easter  Meditation) 


Ye  have  eternal  life. — I  John  j : 


The  Life  Immortal 


WE  gather  here  this  morning  with  the 
voice  and  heart  of  faith.  The  substance  of 
that  faith  is  this  :  that  Jesus  leads  us  through 
the  paths  of  our  divinest  and  best  life.  We 
are  to  follow  him  ;  to  go  with  him  to  bap- 
tism, receive  the  heavenly  summons  and 
with  him  devote  our  lives  to  good  and 
sacred  ends,  that  with  him  in  the  wilder- 
ness we  may  overcome  the  evil,  pursue  the 
way  of  discipline  and  climb  by  struggles. 
We  are  to  take  our  walk  with  him,  do  good, 
and  be  transfigured  by  it.  We  are  to  take 
with  him  the  road  of  Calvary,  share  in  his 
cross,  and  live  by  dying  to  ourselves  and 
sacrifice  for  other  men.  This  is  the  Chris- 
tian way  on  earth. 

At  Calvary  his  earthly  race  came  to  an 

end.     And  so  with  us.     We  enter  on  this 

life,  discover  in  ourselves  a  striving  soul  of 

goodness,  fight  out  our  warfare,  bear  our 

141 


142     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

many  sorrows,  and  often  when  the  deepest 
joys  of  life  have  just  begun,  the  dark  clouds 
gather,  the  shades  of  evening  fall,  the  sun 
goes  down,  our  eyes  become  so  dim  we  can- 
not see  the  forms  we  love,  nor  can  we 
longer  hear  the  tender  voices  of  affection. 
The  long  night  cometh  for  us  all  too  soon. 
What  seems  but  the  beginning  is  the  end, 
the  sunrise  and  the  twilight  but  one  brief 
day,  and  life  goes  out,  into  an  unseen  and 
an  unknown  world. 

Is  this  the  end  to  which  the  paths  of 
Christian  faith  have  led  ?  Or  are  we  still 
led  on,  and  does  the  Master  take  us  on  be- 
yond the  vale  to  share  his  own  unbroken 
life  ?  Is  it  the  evening  or  the  morning 
hour,  or  is  it  both  ? 

"If  a  man  die,  shall  he  live  again?" 
It  is  an  ancient  and  a  universal  and  a  very 
solemn  question.  The  first  of  men  who 
walked  the  earth,  in  death's  dread  presence 
must  have  asked  it.  However  thoughtless 
of  eternal  things,  and  many  men  are  so,  all 
who  have  lived  since  him  have  sometimes 
echoed  it.  And  though  men  sometimes  are 
so  base  that  they  can  speak  of  it  in  levity 


THE  LIFE  IMMORTAL      143 

and  mirth,  it  ought  to  still  us  with  the  sense 
of  our  eternal  selves.  It  is  the  deepest  and 
profoundest  question  of  the  human  heart 
and  mind.  If  it  be  answered  by  a  dread 
negation,  and  as  some  men  have  said,  the 
grave  ends  all,  then  human  life  and  human 
love  are  but  a  mocker}7  and  lie.  But  if  the 
answer  be  that  men  shall  live  again,  the 
vistas  of  untrodden  futures  are  invested 
with  attractiveness  and  glory,  may  not  re- 
pel us  with  an  awful  dread,  but  lure  us  on- 
ward and  make  all  our  joys,  our  struggles 
and  our  disappointments  to  glow  with  an 
eternal  goodness. 

The  older  Holy  Scriptures  asked  the 
question,  gave  us  some  passing  glimpses  of 
an  unseen  hope,  but  no  certain  answer — 
asked  it  with  hesitating  voice  and  almost 
left  it  where  they  found  it. 

The  doubt,  suspense  and  stammering 
speech  of  psalmist,  prophet  and  priest  came 
to  an  end  two  thousand  years  ago.  True 
and  completed  human  life  had  never  been 
before  revealed,  and  when  it  was,  its  destiny 
became  assured.  It  came  in  no  uncertain 
tones.  Jesus  spoke  as  never  man  before 


144     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

had  spoken.  I  live,  and  as  I  live,  ye  also 
shall  not  die. 

The  faith  in  an  immortal  life  grows  with 
the  mind  and  heart  of  man.  Both  as  desire 
and  aspiration,  and  as  trust  and  faith,  its 
fineness,  fervency  and  power  have  kept  ad- 
vance with  the  increasing  spirit  culture  of  the 
race.  It  has  not  been  confined,  as  some  self- 
vaunting  men  have  thought,  to  timid  and  to 
slavish,  superstitious  souls.  The  lowly  and 
unlearned  indeed  desire  and  hope.  So  have 
the  finest  minds  and  choicest  spirits  among 
men. 

The  most  imposing  figure  of  the  century 
in  which  he  lived,  in  the  great  world  of  lit- 
erary art,  proclaimed,  at  three  score  years 
and  ten,  this  article  of  faith  as  power  to 
alleviate,  to  sanctify  his  daily  toil,  to  make 
him  strong  and  patient,  wise  and  just,  as- 
piring and  humble,  and  described  it  as  per- 
petual vision  of  a  better  world  whose  shin- 
ing pierced  the  darkness  of  his  present  life 
of  bitter  persecution  and  unjust,  unholy 
judgment.  His  faith  became  conviction,  and 
the  sacred  consolation  of  Victor  Hugo's  soul 
was  the  supreme  conviction  of  his  great  and 


THE  LIFE  IMMORTAL      145 

finely  cultured  mind.  With  all  the  wealth 
of  thought  he  poured  upon  us,  he  declared 
that  though  he  spoke  his  thoughts  in  prose 
and  history,  philosophy  and  verse,  romance, 
tradition,  satire,  ode  and  song,  he  had  not 
said  the  thousandth  part  within  him,  and 
that  though  his  long  day's  work  was  finished 
he  could  not  say  his  life  was  done. 

The  poets  of  our  life  are  men  who  have 
transformed  our  highest  wishes  into  hope 
and  faith,  reached  our  ideals,  expressed  them 
for  us,  and  made  real  to  us  the  things  our 
better  selves  have  sought,  and  felt,  but  could 
not  say. 

Amid  legendary  mists  of  ancient  Greece 
the  oldest  of  the  poets  that  we  know  gave 
whisperings  of  faith  in  the  eternity  of  spirit. 
Then  the  immortal  Dante  came  and  gathered 
for  us  all  things  round  the  eternal  and  the 
infinite  love. 

The  bard  of  Avon,  whom  all  men  have 
loved,  tells  the  superiority  of  goodness  to  the 
circumstance  of  severed  human  love,  exalts 
the  spiritual  gain  of  earthly  loss,  and  beauti- 
fully speaks  of  the  immortal  longings  in 
us.  The  Vale  of  Grasmere  spoke  eternal 


146     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

thoughts  to  Wordsworth,  and  gave  prophecy, 
with  all  its  quiet  beauty,  of  another  country 
beautiful  beyond.  Our  own  transcendent 
poet,  whose  lofty  heights  of  soul  and  mind 
no  men  among  his  age  could  reach,  whose 
thought  shut  out  the  earth,  and  lived  in 
heaven,  pierced  the  vale  and  entered  life 
through  death  before  it  came.  While 
Browning  saw  the  evolution  of  the  soul  and 
by  it  beheld  the  glory  of  a  growingly  per- 
fected imperfection,  not  far  away  was  Ten- 
nyson declaring  to  himself  the  moral  incon- 
ceivability that  his  deep  love  could  perish. 
In  their  adjustment  of  the  poet's  faith  and 
sight  to  reason,  philosophers  have  done  their 
sacred  work,  and  even  Cicero,  the  oldest  of 
them,  sees  in  death  the  living  change  of  an 
abode.  Lotze,  both  scientist  and  thinker, 
affirmed  eternity  of  spirit  in  all  things  good, 
while  Terrier  declared  the  inconceivability 
of  death,  announced  it  as  unthinkable,  and 
thus  eternal  life  as  necessary  thought,  the 
image  of  reality.  The  greatest  of  them  all 
was  Kant,  and  he  saw,  in  the  progress  of  our 
spirits  to  a  goal,  that  to  attain  their  end,  an 
infinite  future  must  be,  and  in  the  greatness 


THE  LIFE  IMMORTAL      147 

of  both  mind  and  heart,  could  say  :  "  I  do 
not  fear  to  die." 

In  our  day,  more  than  in  any  other  day 
before,  science  here  gives  the  helping,  not 
the  hindering,  hand  to  faith. 

Perhaps  you  say  in  answer  to  all  this. 
What  does  it  mean  to  me  that  these  have 
seen  the  light  ?  The  help  is  this :  that  other 
men,  whose  vision  and  whose  minds  are 
clearer  than  our  own,  may  help  us  in  our 
blindness  by  a  guiding  hand.  It  is  as  if  we 
wandered  with  a  guide  whose  clearer  sight 
beholds  ahead  the  light  to  which  we  move 
but  which  we  cannot  see,  tells  us  it  is  there, 
and  we  make  his  sight  our  own  until  we  gain 
the  vision  for  ourselves.  I  willingly  confess 
the  things  that  I  believe,  in  part  because  good 
men,  and  better  men,  than  I,  believed  and 
saw  them.  Thus,  on  the  grounds  of  moral 
goodness  in  the  Infinite,  of  reason  and  of 
love  revealed  in  his  creation,  and  the  sacred 
worth  of  human  souls  and  lives,  these  men 
have  come  together  on  the  grounds  of  faith. 

Without  this  hope  in  an  immortal  life, 
there  can  be  no  religion  worth  the  name. 
We  cannot  say  "Our  Father,"  for  if  he 


148     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

leaves  us  here  to  struggle  and  to  suffer  for 
no  end,  he  is  not  our  Father  and  he  is  not 
good.  If  death  be  final,  the  universe  is  but 
a  reckless  chaos  and  it  has  no  reason  in  it. 
The  worth  of  human  life  is  gone,  for  its 
ideals  are  false  and  its  best  aspirations  hope- 
less. 

"  We  know  this  earth  is  not  our  sphere, 
For  we  cannot  so  narrow  us,  but  that 
We  still  exceed  it." 

But  is  the  song  of  poet  and  reasoning 
of  philosophic  mind  all  that  we  have,  or  is 
there  something  that  is  more  our  own  ?  Do 
we  not  feel  within  ourselves  the  things  they 
have  expressed  for  us  ?  Have  we  not  asked 
with  one  of  them  — 

"Shall  friendship — love — shall  all  those  ties 
That  bind  a  moment,  and  then  leave  us, 
Once  again  be  found?  " 

We  all  have  known  the  sad  and  hard, 
but  deep  and  rich  experience,  of  standing 
by  the  side  of  the  loved  form  of  some  good, 
noble  soul  that  has  left  us — one  that  has  made 
an  impress  on  our  spirits,  enriched  us  with 


THE  LIFE  IMMORTAL      149 

its  graces  here,  inspired  by  its  thought,  ex- 
alted our  ideals  and  helped  us  by  its  good- 
ness ;  that  has  transformed  our  evil  into 
penitence,  has  moved  upon  the  waters  of 
our  soul,  inspired  our  hopes,  led  us  in  love, 
spent  itself  for  us,  and  made  us  long  for  its 
own  goodness.  Have  such  not  led  us  out 
beyond  their  graves,  and  in  their  light  have 
we  not  seen  the  unseen  world?  We  feel 
their  spirits  do  not  leave  us.  They  are 
immortal  here  when  they  are  gone.  They 
live  with  us,  and  still  uphold  and  guide  us, 
strengthen  our  weakened  hands  and  still 
rebuke  us  for  our  sins  and  help  us  by  their 
love. 

Do  they  do  this,  and  yet  can  we  say  they 
themselves  are  not?  Do  they  not  say, 
"  I  live ;  because  I  live  ye  also  shall  not 
die"? 

How  often  God  and  heaven  are  with  us 
here,  although  we  wist  it  not !  Some  day 

"We  shall  behold  thee,  face  to  face, 
O  God,  and  in  thy  light  retrace 
How  in  all  we  loved  here,  still  wast  thou  ! " 

The     words    such     lives    repeat    to    us 


150     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

are  but  the  echo  of  our  Christian  faith. 
The  life  of  Jesus  is  our  final  ground  of 
hope  because  it  gathers  in  itself  all  truth 
and  love  and  goodness,  all  those  things 
which  are  immortal  as  the  God  who  gave 
them. 

The  evidences  of  our  immortality  are 
not  alone  in  Jesus'  resurrection,  but  are  in 
the  life  that  rose.  That  life  was  both 
divine  and  human.  It  revealed  in  perfect 
measure  the  sharing  of  God's  life  by  men. 
The  lesson  of  to-day  is  this.  If  we  may 
gain  this  kinship  between  God  and  us,  then 
our  souls  cannot  die  till  God  is  dead.  Thus 
did  our  Lord  bring  immortality  to  light. 

He  showed  us  truth  and  love  and  duty, 
that  they  cannot  die,  and  that  as  we  gain 
them  we  too  shall  live.  It  is  only  as  these 
live  in  us  that  we  live  in  this  present  life. 
Sin  is  death  now  as  it  is  hereafter.  Im- 
mortal life  is  but  another  name  for  good- 
ness. 

If  this  be  true,  it  is  not  something  future 
only,  but  something  present  now.  It  means 
that  present  deeds  have  an  eternal  meaning, 
and  that  all  relations  sacred  here  are 


THE  LIFE  IMMORTAL      151 

heavenly  and  immortal,  and  we  should  so 
deem  them.  Jesus,  who  revealed  it,  never 
spoke  of  life  in  any  other  way,  and  no  other 
is  true  life. 

"  'T  is  the  divinity  that  stirs  within  us  : 
'Tis  heaven  itself  that  points  out  an  hereafter." 

If  we  are  raised  together  with  Christ,  it 
is  when  we  seek  the  things  that  are  above. 
Our  true  faith  in  the  heaven  that  is  to  be, 
comes  only  as  that  heaven  sheds  its  glow 
upon  the  life  that  is.  "We  best  confess  it 
when  we  seek  the  things  that  are  above,  and 
only  as  we  walk  with  Jesus  here  shall  we  be 
with  him  in  the  realm  beyond,  and  thus  do 
we  become  partakers  of  his  resurrection. 

This  is  a  very  deep  and  glorious  thought 
— the  endlessness  of  all  we  do.  How  it 
should  guide  our  every  choice  and  how 
determine  every  thought  and  act !  How  it 
should  consecrate  our  loves,  exalt  our  lives 
and  purify  our  hearts,  transform  our  selfish- 
ness to  loving  service,  and  make  the  work 
of  Christ  for  us,  a  work  in  us,  and  thus  his 
resurrection  ours  !  Our  immortality  is  now, 
a  growing  of  the  spirit  life  within,  the 


152     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

deepening  of  our  love,  the  softening  of  our 
hearts  with  sympathy  and  tenderness,  the 
sanctifying  of  our  lives.  Thus  shall  we  put 
on  immortality,  thus  shall  our  corruptible 
put  on  its  incorruption,  and  thus,  as  Jesus 
by  his  life  brought  immortality  to  light,  we 
must  do  by  following  in  his  way. 

"  This  is  the  life  to  come,  to  be  to  other  souls 
The  cup  of  strength  in  some  great  agony, 
Be  the  sweet  presence  of  a  good  diffused; 
Thus  do  we  join  the  choir  invisible 
Whose  music  is  the  gladness  of  the  world." 

Such  hopes  and  aspirations  are  the 
foregleams  of  eternity.  There  is  but  one 
life,  and  we  live  it  now.  It  is  only  as  we 
rise  with  Christ  to-day  and  now  that  we 
shall  rise  and  live  with  him  beyond. 

If  it  be  that  our  faith  is  dim  and  clouded, 
we  shall  regain  it  when  we  live  as  if  we 
were  immortal  souls. 

I  will  not  try  to  tell  you  what  it  is  be- 
yond. It  is  the  wiping  of  our  tears ;  it  is  no 
more  death,  nor  sorrow,  neither  crying, 
when  these  former  things  are  passed  away, 
and  night  shall  be  no  more.  And  we  may 


THE  LIFE  IMMORTAL      153 

know  that  it  is  good,  the  realizing  of  our 
best  ideals,  the  actual  of  what  we  hope. 
For  thus,  by  these,  the  varying,  uncertain 
shadows  of  the  things  that  are,  are  pierced  by 
the  eternal  sunlight  of  the  things  that  are 
to  be,  and  if  our  holiest  hopes,  our  highest 
aspirations  and  our  soul's  ideals  are  deepened 
as  we  walk  with  Jesus  in  the  daytime  of  our 
life,  at  eventide  there  shall  be  light. 


The  Universal   Incarnation 


And  they  shall  call  his  name  Emmanuel,  which 
being  interpreted  is,  God  with  us. — Matt,  i :  23. 

Whosoever  shall  confess  that  Jesus  is  the  Son 
of  God,  God  dwelleth  in  him,  and  he  in  God. — 
I  John  4  :  15. 

Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it  unto  one  of  the  least 
of  these  my  brethren,  ye  have  done  it  unto  me. — 
Matt.  2$ :  40. 


The  Universal  Incarnation 


THE  shepherd  song  which  sounded  in 
the  Syrian  sky  two  thousand  years  ago  to- 
day, announced  to  human  ears  the  final  and 
supreme  event  and  consummation  in  the 
history  of  humanity's  fulfilment.  It 
heralded  the  last  achievement  of  a  growing 
revelation,  the  realizing  of  the  deeper  and 
diviner  meaning  of  our  human  life  so  long 
foretold  by  holy  prophet  and  foreseen  by 
ancient  seer.  The  hesitating  gleams  of 
light  which  they  beheld  became  the 
radiance  of  an  eternal  glow  of  which  their 
own  was  but  the  distant,  glimmering 
dawn  ;  and  the  preparing  law  of  Moses  and 
the  prophets  came  to  their  divine  comple- 
tion in  the  grace  and  truth  of  Jesus  Christ. 
In  him  God  was  with  men,  is  with  them 
still,  and  ever  will  be  with  them,  in  the 
fulness  of  humanity  uplifted  to  its 
prophetic  and  divine  intention. 


158    THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

The  inner  history  of  these  two  thousand 
years  succeeding  is  but  the  interpretation 
of  the  light  which  first  revealed  itself  in 
multitude  of  heavenly  host  that  quiet  night 
beneath  the  open  sky. 

The  transformation  of  the  hearts  and 
lives  of  men  and  the  supreme  endeavors  of 
the  race  have  come  by  following  the  star 
beheld  by  those  who  by  it  sought  the  larger 
light  to  which  it  led.  It  was  the  ultimate 
of  human  truth  and  goodness  and  being 
thus  it  points  and  leads  men  to  the  final 
goal  of  life. 

The  supreme  and  sovereign  personage  of 
history  is  Jesus  Christ.  To  grasp  the 
magnitude  of  Jesus'  person  is  the  divinest 
task  of  human  thought.  For  the  intel- 
ligence of  men  he  is  the  source  of  an 
exhaustless  contemplation.  The  loftiest  of 
human  minds  are  reverent  in  his  im- 
measurable presence,  and  with  the  wise 
men  of  the  East  can  offer  but  their  homage, 
and  at  his  feet  cast  their  slight  morsels  of 
frankincense  and  myrrh  and  offer  at  his 
shrine  the  incense  of  their  genius.  This 
supreme  Mind,  whose  words  of  holy 


UNIVERSAL  INCARNATION    159 

wisdom  have  transformed  our  thought  and 
life,  knows  no  intellectual  companions. 
Between  him  and  the  intellects  of  loftiest 
reach  there  is  a  great  gulf  fixed.  His 
greatness,  unencompassed  by  the  mind  of 
man,  calls  for  the  heart.  For  the  interpreta- 
tion of  his  ineffable,  transcendent  person, 
only  the  clearness  of  a  pure  heart  suffices. 
The  attitude  of  men  to  Jesus  is  the  final 
and  determining  computer  of  their  length 
and  height  and  breadth  of  vision  and  of 
life. 

He  is  the  way,  the  truth,  the  life  of  men. 
They  walk  in  holy  paths,  become  their  own 
true  selves,  and  only  truly  live,  in  the 
larger,  deeper  meaning  of  their  life,  as  they 
interpret  him  in  thought,  are  moved  to 
worship  in  his  incomparable  presence,  and 
follow  him  in  life.  His  way  of  truth  be- 
comes the  path  of  life. 

The  fact  of  his  eternal  presence,  his 
healing  of  the  sick  of  heart,  his  raising  of 
men's  dead  and  dying  spirits,  the  transla- 
tion into  life  of  the  utterance  of  his  lips, 
have  been  the  only  glories  of  the  race  since 
his  appearing.  The  story  of  the  fleeing 


160     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

shadows  in  the  heart  of  man  and  the 
world's  larger  life  have  been  but  the  fulfil- 
ment of  his  own  announcement  that  he  was 
come  to  be  the  light  of  men  and  of  the 
world.  Every  advancement  of  the  human 
mind  in  the  interpretation  and  the  deepen- 
ing in  conception  of  man's  moral  life  is  but 
the  fulfilment  of  this  vision  of  himself  to 
his  own  soul,  every  growing  love  of  man 
for  man  its  realization. 

As  Son  of  man  and  Son  of  God,  the 
interpreter  and  the  revealer  of  the  Father's 
nature  and  man's  childhood,  the  spreading 
of  his  life  among  the  sons  of  men  has  ever 
gendered  love  and  brotherhood.  The 
sacrifice  and  service  of  our  life,  which  are 
its  finest  beauties,  are  but  the  adumbra- 
tions of  his  light  and  testify  to  the  pre- 
eminence of  Calvary. 

He  performed  the  loftiest  mental  achieve- 
ment of  the  race.  His  ideal  of  a  kingdom 
of  heaven  upon  the  earth,  his  conception 
of  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  his  apprehen- 
sion of  a  universal  brotherhood  of  men, 
his  interpretation  of  eternal  human  life, 
reached  a  moral  and  spiritual  height  which 


UNIVERSAL  INCARNATION   161 

absolutely  knows  no  end.  All  our  uplift- 
ings  of  the  moral  ideal,  of  our  discoveries 
of  goodness,  are  but  the  mind  of  Christ 
translated  to  the  minds  of  men. 

To  recover  his  unutterable  vision  is  the 
loftiest  aim  of  human  mind  and  heart.  To 
see  his  God,  to  grasp  his  interpretation  of 
our  own  souls  is  the  supreme  achievement 
set  before  the  race.  His  consciousness,  so 
far  as  gained,  is  its  superlative  possession. 
To  know  Jesus  Christ  would  be  to  reach 
the  height  and  depth  of  spiritual  knowl- 
edge. His  association  with  the  Infinite  was 
an  ideal,  unique,  transcendent,  ineffable  and 
unsearchable  relation. 

God  is  the  first  and  last,  the  beginning 
and  the  end,  of  all  his  works.  In  him 
humanity,  the  best  of  his  creations,  finds  its 
meaning  and  its  end.  The  Infinite  has  ever 
been  with  men,  but  in  completeness,  only 
once,  in  Jesus  Christ.  And  ever  since  the 
angel  annunciated  to  the  mother,  The  Lord 
is  with  thee,  the  Holy  Spirit  shall  upon  thee 
come,  the  power  of  the  highest  overshadow 
thee,  Jesus  has  meant  this  to  man.  The 
incarnation  was  this  pledge  of  the  divine 


i62     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

above,  and  with  our  human  life,  the  rev- 
elation of  the  heaven  that  lies  about  us  in 
our  infancy  and  constantly  follows  all  our 
days.  The  shining  of  the  glory  of  the  Lord 
about  the  shepherds  on  the  plain  of  Beth- 
lehem was  but  the  harbinger  and  witness  of 
the  eternal  presence  of  the  Infinite  with  men. 

God  with  us  ! — a  human  form  which  was 
the  perfect  garment  of  the  eternal  Spirit. 
The  meaning  of  it  all  is  this  :  that  Jesus  had 
the  mind  and  heart  of  God  and  brings  be- 
fore the  race  as  its  supreme  attainment  the 
gaining  of  that  mind  and  heart. 

The  person,  then,  of  Jesus  calls  for  the 
homage  of  the  race.  He  is  an  eternal  con- 
trast to  the  human  life  to  which  he  came 
and  comes.  The  difference  between  his 
sinlessness  and  human  sin  is  an  eternal 
moral  contrast.  Against  the  somber  back- 
ground of  our  darkened  human  lives,  the 
perfection  of  his  spirit  is  as  the  sun  at  night. 
His  exhaustless  person  calls  for  a  super- 
eminent,  unique  distinction.  His  eternal 
contrast  between  sinlessness  and  sin  is  the 
eternal  contrast  between  God  and  man,  and 
when  men  bow  the  knee  to  Jesus  Christ 


UNIVERSAL  INCARNATION   163 

they  worship  and  adore  the  God  whom  he 
ineffably  reveals. 

Let  the  distinction  be  effaced  and  he  be- 
comes a  little  less  blind  leader  of  the  blind. 
Unless  the  Father  and  the  Son  be  one,  the 
Father  is  not  surely  leading  men  in  him. 
Less  than  divine  himself,  he  never  can  lead 
men  to  a  divine  intention,  nor  furnish  a 
divine  ideal,  except  in  partial  measure.  His 
"  I  say  unto  you  "  is  not  determining.  His 
"  Come  unto  me  "  is  in  a  hesitating  voice. 
He  speaks  not  with  authority,  but  as  the 
scribes,  and  there  is  no  unbroken  light  upon 
the  world  of  moral  being. 

No  categories  purely  human  hold  him. 
Heredity,  environment  and  training  do  not 
explain  his  sovereign  life  amid,  and  sover- 
eign sway  among,  the  lives  of  men.  The 
being  whose  completed  human  life  wit- 
nessed to  no  rectifying  process,  whose  holi- 
ness did  not  begin  with  penitence,  nor  ever 
felt  its  consciousness,  who  never  knew  regret 
for  wrong,  and  who  united  in  himself  all 
goodnesses,  is  lifted  so  above  the  men  beside 
him  that  his  head  is  in  the  clouds  of  heaven. 

His  works  but  verify  the  estimate  and  call 


164     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

for  nothing  less.  Without  the  aid  of  human 
powers  he  recreates  a  race.  He  utters  truth 
which  cannot  be  gainsaid  and  which  knows 
no  beyond.  The  standing  moral  miracle  of 
history  is  Jesus  Christ. 

And  the  reverent  man  who  seeks,  as  men 
will  seek,  and  ought  to  seek,  an  adequate 
interpretation  of  Jesus  to  the  intellect — be  at 
the  same  time  his  heart  and  motive  pure, — 
will  find  himself  lifted  beyond  the  humanity 
in  which  he  stands,  will  find  himself  upon 
the  height  of  Tabor,  gazing  at  a  counte- 
nance transfigured  before  him,  at  a  face 
which  shines  as  the  sun,  at  garments  white 
as  the  light;  while  the  cloud  of  a  divine 
glory  overshadows  him,  and  in  his  ears  re- 
sounds the  voice,  "  This  is  my  beloved  Son : 
hear  ye  him."  The  God  of  Jesus  is  the 
highest  reach  of  human  thought.  The  Jesus 
of  God  knows  nothing  higher,  and  he  that 
hath  seen  him  hath  seen  the  Father. 

The  solitary  perfect  moral  human  light 
of  these  two  thousand  years  is  clouded  with 
ambiguous  shadows,  the  nature  of  the  Infinite 
unknown,  the  faith  of  men  and  all  their 
moral  life  uncertain,  the  goal  of  their 


UNIVERSAL  INCARNATION   165 

achievement  is  unsure,  and  the  whole  pres- 
ent scheme  of  human  progress  fails,  unless, 
with  an  authority  that  is  divine,  with  an 
ideal  that  is  the  form  of  God,  Jesus  Christ 
is  God  with  us. 

But  the  vision  and  the  revelation  have 
not  here  their  final  end  for  human  life. 
The  Son  of  God  is  likewise  Son  of  man. 
He  has  revealed  not  only  God  to  men,  but 
God  in  man,  and  whosoever  shall  confess 
that  Jesus  is  the  Son  of  God  shall  find  in 
Jesus'  light  that  God  is  dwelling  in  himself 
and  he  in  God.  The  unity  of  Christ  with 
men  must  be  as  clear  as  the  distinction. 
There  is  in  Jesus  a  deeper  element,  a 
deeper  meaning  for  the  race,  than  the  ap- 
prehension of  the  Lord's  divine  identity. 
He  must  become  revealer  of  the  God  within 
our  human  life  and  selves ;  his  mission  to  re- 
store the  broken  image  and  the  heavenly 
superscription  on  the  race.  His  ideal  for 
his  brethren  was  the  same  that  he  realized  in 
his  own  life.  Be  ye  perfect  as  your  heav- 
enly Father  is  perfect. 

Humanity  can  never  gain  its  end  by  gaz- 


ing  at  a  portrait  of  the  Master.  It  must 
apprehend  his  mind  and  gain  his  spirit  and 
his  life.  The  relation  of  the  eternal  Son 
with  the  eternal  Father  is  the  ultimate  ideal 
relation  between  men  and  God — the  actual 
in  Jesus,  the  prophetical  in  man.  "Without 
the  immanence  of  Christ,  his  heavenly 
transcendence  can  have  no  vital  meaning  for 
the  sons  of  men.  And  as  his  actual  con- 
trast between  himself  and  men  is  the  eternal 
ground  of  faith,  so  must  his  essential  kinship 
with  the  race  be  its  eternal  ground  of  hope. 

The  actual  contrast  between  the  Son  of 
God  and  the  sons  of  men  is  identical  with 
the  moral  difference  between  the  Infinite 
and  finite ;  then  must  as  well  the  identity 
of  the  sons  of  men  with  the  human  Jesus 
be  the  ground  of  their  consciousness  as  the 
children  of  God. 

It  has  a  meaning  both  for  the  interpreta- 
tion of  the  Master  and  the  interpretation  of 
humanity.  For  if  it  should  be  that  the  Son 
is  not  the  nature  of  the  Father,  we  are  left 
without  the  pledge  of  our  relation  with  the 
Father  as  his  children. 

And  if  we  bring  these  truths  together, 


UNIVERSAL  INCARNATION   167 

we  shall  have  a  Christ  who  is  the  very 
substance  of  the  Father,  with  his  being 
grounded  in  the  Godhead,  solitary  and  su- 
preme. And  we  shall  have  a  human  Christ, 
the  supreme  human  soul,  who  lives  among 
and  moves  upon  the  heart  and  life  of  men, 
lifting  the  race  to  his  own  vision  of  its  divine 
ideal  and  to  a  consciousness  of  its  own  in- 
separable life  in  God. 

This  brings  us  to  the  very  heart  of  our 
discipleship  with  Christ.  It  is  adoration, 
but  it  is  infinitely  more.  It  is  imitation, 
but  it  is  vastly  greater.  It  gives  a  Christ 
infinitely  beyond  and  yet  not  inaccessible, 
whose  garments  are  as  white  as  light,  but 
with  a  hem  that  we  may  touch,  and  live. 
Discipleship  is  realization  of  the  divineness 
in  our  human  clay.  It  is  a  love  becoming 
like  the  object  of  itself.  The  incarnation 
was  in  man  then,  that  it  might  be  in  men. 
In  Jesus  God  became  partaker  in  the  life  of 
men  that  men  might  be  partakers  in  the 
very  life  of  God. 

If  it  is  hard  for  us  to  see  it  in  our  own 
sinful  selves,  it  will  be  easier  if  we  look 
upon  the  mediators  between  ourselves  and 


168     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

Christ ;  I  mean  on  good  and  holy  men  and 
women  whom  we  know  and  have  known. 
Theophanies  in  partial,  varying  measure  we 
have  not  far  to  seek.  The  darkness  of  our 
human  life  has  ever  been  dispelled  by 
heaven's  glow  within,  and  shining  from, 
the  human  lives  of  goodness  and  of  love 
that  have  touched  close  our  own.  The 
peace  of  God  has  come  from  some  calm 
human  hand,  a  tenderness  and  love  which 
are  divine  are  often  spoken  by  such  human 
lips  and  faces. 

If  we  should  trace  the  better  life  of  these 
two  thousand  years  since  Christ,  we  find  it 
did  not  come  except  by  human  mediation. 
It  all  has  come  from  Christ,  but  came 
through  men  and  women  who  more  closely 
followed  him.  "We  have  known  and  felt 
the  love  of  God  by  seeing  love  in  human 
life,  the  truth  by  visions  of  it  in  true  men 
and  women,  and  when  such  lives  have  passed 
beyond  the  portals  of  this  present  world,  by 
them  we  have  been  lured  and  quickened  to 
a  deeper  faith  in  the  eternal  goodness.  As 
Christ  was  the  interpreter  of  God,  so  these 
are  the  interpreters  of  Christ. 


UNIVERSAL  INCARNATION   169 

Take  these  and  carry  them  from  time 
into  eternity  of  nature,  relieve  them  of  all 
human  moral  weakness,  discharge  all  their 
infirmity,  evolve  the  finite  to  the  moral  in- 
finite, translate  from  partial  to  the  perfect, 
and  you  have  the  incarnation,  the  divine 
and  human  Christ.  No  less  than  this,  then, 
is  the  Christ's  ideal  for  men,  and  the  eter- 
nally enduring  evolution  of  the  race  is  first 
to  apprehend,  and  then  to  gain,  in  partial 
but  in  growing  measure,  the  mind  and  heart 
and  life  of  the  eternal  Son. 

It  is  the  living  over  of  his  life.  It  is  the 
baptism  with  him  in  Jordan,  the  passing 
through  with  him  the  crisis  of  self-revela- 
tion, the  awaking  of  the  holy  consciousness 
within  and  hearing  the  divine  voice  without. 
And  upon  Christ  and  upon  the  humanity 
for  which  he  stands,  falls  the  voice;  on  it 
descends  the  Spirit  like  a  dove  abiding. 
The  colossal  differentiation  must  be  marked. 
The  voice  in  us  is  but  a  whisper,  is  not  con- 
stant, but — it  is  a  voice. 

As  Jesus  walked  the  way  of  men,  so  men 
must  walk  the  way  of  Jesus.  The  wilder- 
ness of  the  temptation  will  await  them. 


170    THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

With  him,  by  him,  they  rise  in  conflict. 
Again  the  difference  is  vast.  His  instant 
and  complete,  unbroken  conquest,  is  their 
age  on  age-long  warfare.  And  yet,  his 
victory  is  the  pledge  of  possibility  for  them. 
The  scene  upon  the  mount  of  Tabor  must 
be  infinitely  more  than  vision.  The  trans- 
figuration of  the  Christ  was  both  vision  and 
an  impartation.  To  stand  within  its  light 
transfigures  those  on  whom  it  sheds  eternal 
and  transforming  glow.  It  is  but  the  be- 
ginning, but  it  is  the  prophecy  of  an  eternal 
possibility. 

The  cross  comes  next.  With  Jesus,  those 
who  would  be  his  disciples  are  called  by 
him  to  gain  by  losing  and  to  live  by  dying. 

To  live,  to  live  for  one  brief  day.  a  life 
which  ends  in  an  eternal  silence?  The 
finest  and  profoundest  meaning  of  the  in- 
carnation for  the  race  is  here.  Only  a 
Christ  whose  being  is  of  God  can  meet  the 
calling  of  the  human  heart  for  those  that 
we  have  loved  long  since  and  lost  a  while. 
Only  a  Jesus  whose  life  was  that  of  men 
can  change  the  longing  into  hope  and  faith. 
For  there  is  no  eternal  but  the  Infinite. 


UNIVERSAL  INCARNATION   171 

Something  divine  within  our  human  life 
must  be,  if  it  shall  know  immortal  life. 

The  human  life  of  Jesus  was  the  life  of 
God  in  man,  and  the  eternal  life  of  men  can 
be  none  other.  Thus  hath  he  brought  our 
human  immortality  to  light. 

The  universal  human  incarnation,  how 
clearly  and  how  unreservedly  he  taught  it 
and  declared  it!  I  am  the  light  of  the 
world,  and  so  are  ye,  like  cities  set  upon  a 
hill  and  are  not  hid.  The  Father  hath  sent 
me,  and  I  send  you. 

This,  then,  becomes  the  deeper  meaning 
of  the  advent :  the  witness  of  divinity 
within  our  humble  human  lives,  touched  by 
the  divine  without  in  Christ,  to  bring  it  to 
fulfilment.  It  is  the  pledge  and  the  inter- 
pretation of  God's  eternal  life  within  his 
children.  The  transcendence  of  the  Master, 
by  his  immanence  becomes  the  pledge  of 
the  transcendence  of  our  present  selves. 

There  is  one  other  and  far-reaching  les- 
son. The  incarnation  is  a  universal  process. 
No  human  child  has  been  left  fatherless. 
The  identity  is  one  that  knows  no  limit  or 
exception.  "  Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it 


172     THE  SPIRIT  CHRISTLIKE 

unto  one  of  the  least  of  these  iny  brethren,  ye 
have  done  it  unto  me."  My  brethren !  From 
the  lips  of  one  of  whom  reproach  was  made 
that  he  receiveth  sinners,  eating  with  them. 
Inasmuch  !  A  universal  incarnation. 

Its  meaning  is  profound  and  of  deep  mo- 
ment. It  translates  the  service  of  God  and 
the  homage  of  Christ  into  the  love  of  the 
race.  It  means  that  other  men  become 
eternal  mediators,  like  Christ,  between  our- 
selves and  God. 

The  vision  we  have  tried  to  see  will  uplift 
if  seen.  No  loftier  view  of  Christ  can 
human  mind  conceive.  No  larger  meaning 
in  him  for  the  race  could  be  invented.  To 
apprehend  the  moral  magnitude  and  con- 
template the  spiritual  force  of  Jesus  is  the 
solitarily  supreme  desire  of  the  mind  of 
man,  and  to  appropriate  his  life  the  loftiest 
endeavor  of  a  human  soul.  In  him  the  In- 
finite is  reachable  to  human  contemplation. 
He  is  God  with  us.  Through  him  attain- 
able to  human  aspiration,  he  is  God  within 
us.  The  Son  of  God,  the  witness  and  the 
earnest  of  the  heavenly  childhood  of  the 


UNIVERSAL  INCARNATION   173 

race,  he  is  the  sovereign  possession  of  man- 
kind. 

And  this  is  the  eternal  meaning  of  mag- 
nificat, annunciation,  holy  advent,  shepherd 
song  in  Syrian  sky  and  the  eternal  light 
which  streams  from  Bethlehem  upon  the 
moral  longings  of  the  sons  of  men. 


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